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OLD ENGLISH HISTORY 



CHILDREN. 



OLD ENGLISH HISTORY 



CHILDREN. 



BY 



EDWARD A. FREEMAN, M.A., 

Late Fellow of Trmiiy College, Oxford, 




WITH MAPS. 



MACMILLAN AND CO. 

1869. 



\^The Right of Trarislation a?id ReJ>rodnction is reserved. \ 






LONDON : 

K. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS, 

BREAD STREET HILL. 



PREFACE. 

This little volume is an experiment, but it is an experiment 
which I may say has already succeeded. Its object is to 
show that clear, accurate, and scientific views of history, or 
indeed of any subject, may be easily given to children from 
the very first. In truth the more rigidly accurate and scien- 
tific a statement is, the more easy it is for a child to take 
it in. The difficulty does not lie with the child, who has 
simply to learn, but with the teacher who often has to un- 
learn. A child finds no difficulty in attaching a correct and 
definite meaning to a word from the first time of his using 
it; the difficulty lies wholly with the teacher, who has often 
been used to a confused and unscientific way of using 
words, which he finds it hard to leave off. 

I have, I hope, shown that it is perfectly easy to teach 
children, from the very first, to distinguish true history alike 
from legend and from wilful invention, and also to under- 
stand the nature of historical authorities and to weigh one 
statement "against another. Here again the difficulty is not 
at all with the child, but wholly with the teacher. 

I have throughout striven to connect the history of England 
with the general history of civihzed Europe, and I have 



vi PREFACE. 

especially tried to make the book serve as an incentive to a 
more accurate study of historical geography. For this pur- 
pose I hope that the maps with which the book is illustrated 
may be found really useful. No error should be more care- 
fully guarded against from the beginning than that of bondage 
to the modern map. A child should learn from the very 
beginning that names like England, Scotland, France, do not 
necessarily mean, and have not always meant, exactly the same 
as they do now. Without perfect accuracy in these matters, 
no clear view of history can ever be gained. Here again 
the only difficulty lies with the teacher, who may have to 
unlearn; to the child it is just as easy to learn the right 
names from the beginning as the wrong ones. 

I have throughout striven carefully to distinguish history 
from legend, but I have not thought it right wholly to throw 
aside the tales which have so often usurped the place of true 
history. These tales ought to be known, if only because they 
have usurped the place of true history. They ought also in 
many cases to be known, sometimes on account of their real 
beauty, sometimes as excellent studies for the comparative 
mythologist. I have therefore not wholly left them out, but 
I have told them as tales, in a shape which clearly distin- 
guishes them from authentic history. And in telling them I 
have taken as my model the best of all examples of simple 
narrative, the best of all examples of English slightly anti- 
quated but still perfectly intelligible, our received version of 
the Old Testament. 

The present book was begun a good many years ago, and 
was written bit by bit for the use of my own children, as 
they wanted it, or as I found time to write it. It will, I 



PREFACE. vii 

suspect, be found that the latter part takes for granted a 
much greater degree of general knowledge than is supposed 
in the early parts. This is owing to the obvious cause that 
the children for wdiom it was written grew older while it was 
being written. As the same change wdll doubtless happen 
to other hearers or readers of the book, I cannot fancy that 
any difficulty will arise on this score. 

The book, being written for particular children, living in 
a particular part of the country, had from the beginning a 
certain local character, and it gave special prominence to 
West-Saxon and especially to Somersetshire affairs. This was 
done on two grounds. It was utterly impossible to give a 
detailed his-tory of all the fluctuating states which made up 
our elder England. I therefore chose for special notice that 
state which in the end swallowed up the rest and which grew 
into the Kingdom of England. But besides this, I thought 
that it gave furtlier life and interest to the story for those for 
whom it was at first meant, if I made those parts of the 
history which concerned Wessex, and especially those which 
concerned Somersetshire and the Somersetshire Bishoprick, to 
stand out in a more marked w^ay than otliers. And when 
revising the book for publication I saw no reason to leave 
out or to change these local allusions. I believe they add 
somew^hat to the life and reality of the story, and I hope that 
they may be also useful in another w^ay. I have certainly had 
some advantages for my purpose in living in what was so long 
a border district, a battle-field of the Briton and the English- 
man. But every shire, almost every neighbourhood, has its 
own contributions to English Histor}^, its own places and 
events of special interest. Very few of these could be diixctly 



viii PREFACE. 

mentioned in a book of this kind, but I hope that the sort 
of use which I have made of the facts and events special to 
my own neighbourhood may lead others to deal in the same 
way with the places and events which more closely concern 
them. I trust that intelligent readers and teachers will often 
be able to supplement my references to matters belonging to 
Somersetshire with references of the same kind belonging to 
other parts of England. 

With regard to the spelling of Old-English names, I must 
plead guilty to a certain amount of inconsistency. My own 
feeling is in favour of always using the genuine spelling of 
the old names rather than the common Latin and French 
corruptions. But I find that many people are in a manner 
frightened at the unusual form which is thus given to names 
still in common use. I have therefore, somewhat at the ex- 
pense of consistency, left some of the more common names, 
such as Alfred, Edward, and Edith, in their modern spelling ; 
while other names which are less familiar to modern readers, 
and which often have no one generally received modern 
shape, I have left in their ancient form. On the subject 
of Old-English names and on one or two points connected 
with the Old-English language I have added a few remarks 
at the end of this Preface. 

I ought to mention that this little work was begun, and 
a great part of it written, before I had so much as planned 
the History of the Norman Conquest. In the parts of the 
history where the two works come on the same ground, the 
smaller was, I believe, everywhere written before the larger. 
The influence of the larger work on the smaller has been 
twofold, ' First, it has brought it sooner to an end, and has 



PREFACE, ix 

thereby hastened its publication. My first intention was to 
go on to the reign of Edward the First, but I found that 
it was hopeless to think of doing so, while the larger work 
was on my hands. I therefore send forth the present portion, 
which I may or may not go on with at some future time. 
The other way in which the great book has influenced the 
little one has been this. The fuller and more careful re- 
searches which were needed for the greater work have enabled 
me to correct and improve many things in the smaller. 
Further than this the two works have no connexion. The 
smaller is not an abridgement of the greater, neither is the 
greater an expansion of the smaller. They are two inde- 
pendent narratives written at different times and with quite 
different objects. 

I have only to add that the young reader who carefully 
goes through this little book will, when he comes to the 
end of it, still have very much to learn even on its imme- 
diate subject; but I earnestly hope that he may have 
nothing to unlearn. 



SOMERLEAZE, WeLLS, 
JiUy 27//^, 1869. 



A FEW WORDS ON OLD-ENGLISH 
WORDS AND NAMES. 

The English tongue which we speak now is essentially the 
same tongue as that which our forefathers brought with them 
into Britain in the fifth and sixth centuries. In the course 
of fourteen hundred, and even of eight hundred years, it has 
changed so much that the Old-English cannot be understood 
except by those who study it on purpose. But this is the 
same thing that happens to all languages more or less. There 
is no part of Europe where the people could at once under- 
stand a book TVTitten in their o^^^l language eight hundred 
years ago. But the change has been gradual; we did not 
leave off speaking one language and take to speaking another, 
as the people of Gaul and Spain left off speaking their own 
tongues and spoke such Latin as they could, or as many 
of the Welsh in Britain have learned to speak Enghsh. We 
have no more changed from one language to another than 
our cousins in Geniiany have, though undoubtedly English 
has changed more in a thousand years than the High-Dutch 
or Geniian has. The chief points of change are two. First, 
we have lost nearly all our i?iflexio?is, that is the endings 



xii A FEW WORDS ON 

which mark genders, cases, and the Hke, while the High- 
Dutch has kept more of them, though it too has lost a great 
many. The other is that we have lost a great many old 
Teutonic words which are kept in High-Dutch, and have 
taken to Latin or French words instead. But we have always 
gone on speaking the same tongue, and the changes have 
been very gradual. And our tongue has always been called 
English as far back as we can go ; so that it is better to 
call it English at all times, and, when needful, to distinguish 
the older form as Old-English^ than to talk, as many people 
do, about *^ Saxon " or " Anglo-Saxon," which makes people 
fancy that one language has been changed for another. 

I have just now compared our language with the High- 
Dutch or German; but it must always be remembered that 
High-Dutch is not the tongue nearest to our own. English 
is in truth a form of the Low-Dutch^ the language which 
in different forms spreads from Flanders right away to the 
Baltic. The High and the Low-Dutch differ in this kind of 
w^ay. Where High-Dutch uses a particular letter, Low-Dutch 
often uses another, according to a fixed rule which seldom or 
never alters, which at the beginning of words I may say 
never alters at all.- Thus a word which begins with z in 
High-Dutch must begin with / in English, and a word which 
begins with d in High-Dutch must begin with /// in English. 
For th our fathers had, like the Greeks, a particular letter 
called Thoim^ which is written J) at the beginning of a word 
and S at the middle or end. Some people still write y^ for 
the^ where the y is nothing but a p badly written. 



OLD-ENGLISH WORDS AND NAMES, xiii 

Our Old-English names, most of which have gone out of 
use, though we use a few still, always had a meaning, just 
as the Greek and Hebrew names had. But the Old-English 
names, like the Greek names too, fall into two classes. In 
some of them, if you have any knowledge of the language 
at all, you cannot help seeing the meaning at once. But 
there are others whose meaning is by no means so clear, 
and even a man who knows the language w^ell may be only 
able to guess at the meaning, or perhaps may have to give 
it up altogether. For instance, such names as Neoptolemos, 
Peisistratos, Laodike, in Greek, or ^thelberht, Eadgar, 
^Ifgifu, in Old-EngHsh, at once tell their own meaning to 
any one who has learned the language. But it is quite 
another thing \vith names like lason, Peleus, Tydeus, or 
again with names like Offa, Penda, Dodda. I should not 
Hke to say positively what these names mean, without think- 
ing a good deal about it, and turning to see what learned 
men have said. But you may be sure that all names had 
a meaning at first, and you may be sure that the names 
whose meaning is not plain, which are often the names of 
Gods or heroes, are the older class of the two. These older 
names, you wdll see, both in Greek and English, are gene- 
rally shorter than the later ones, and they do not seem to 
be compound words. But the later names in both tongues 
are generally made up of two words, the meaning of which 
is commonly pretty plain. The English names and those used 
by the Teutonic people on the Continent are made out of 
the same Teutonic roots, but it so happens that not many 



xiv A FEW WORDS ON 

of the particular names are common to England and to the 
Continent. For instance we have plenty of names begin- 
ning with Wil, as Wilfrith, and we have plenty of names 
ending in helm, as Ealdhelm; but I never heard of an 
English Wilhelm, and I doubt your finding a Wilfrith or an 
Ealdhelm abroad. And some names which are common 
abroad are found,* but very rarely, in England, as Carl, Karl, 
Charles; HloShere, Lothar; Hereberht, Charibert, Herbert; 
Frithric, Friedrich, Frederick. Two things have helped to 
make the Old-English names seem more strange and un- 
couth than they need be. One is that most of them have 
gone out of use, so that the foreign names are now more 
familiar. The other is that, oddly enough, the proper names, 
more than any other class of words, are mainly formed out 
of roots which have gone out of use. For instance, in such 
a name as ^thelwulf, the wulf is plain enough, but we have 
quite lost the word cE^el, though it still lives in High-Dutch 
as «^^/= noble. So in ^\gtherht, especially if I use the later 
spelling ^\gthriht, I need hardly tell you the meaning of the 
last syllable; but we have quite lost the word sige, which 
means victory, though that too , Hves in High-Dutch. And 
even in a name like ^Ifgifu, though we still use both the 
words of which it is formed, you might not at once see that 
it means elf-gift. It would be too long a business to tell 
you the meanings of all the names, but it will help you if 
you remember a few of the words which we have lost but 
which are often used in forming names. I have told you of 
cBtiel and sige, which are found together as a name, ^thel- 



OLD-ENGLISH WORDS AND NAMES. xv 

sio-e. Wig, Avar, /lere, army, ead, wealth or possession, wvie, 
man, fellow, fri^, peace, ga?-, spear, l?ur/i, pledge, mwid, pro- 
tection, red or rcsd, counsel (rede), ric, kingdom or govern- 
ment, Jlcsd, birth, mil help you to the meanings of a good 
many. One thing you must always remember that in Old- 
English all names and words ending in a are masculine, 
never feminine, as they commonly are in Latin. Yet we are 
so much more used to Latin than to our own tongue that 
people will go and AATite women's names with an a, Elgiva, 
Editha, Etheldreda, and so on : and I dare say they are 
sometimes surprised to find that Ida and .^lla are names 
of men. 

Perhaps you may ask how you ought to pronounce all 
these old names and other Old-Enghsh words. I cannot 
always tell you, I know how people wrote a thousand years 
back, but I never heard them talk. And we may be quite 
sure that they pronounced, as indeed they wTote, differently 
in different parts of the countr}^, as people do still. We 
see this both in names and in other words. In many words 
and names where a soft sound is now used in the South of 
England, a hard one is used in the North. Thus Carlton 
and Charltoji, Skipton and Shipton are the same name. We 
may be quite sure that C was at first hard before all vowels, 
and that Sc was sounded hard like Sk. But it is also plain 
that, at all events in the South of England, the hard sounds 
got softened into Ch and 6*/^, so that we now say Church, 
Chester, Ship, &c., though we still talk of Kent and King. 
Now it is not easy to say exactly when this change happened. 



xvi A FEW WOJRDS ON 

SO that I cannot tell you for certain whether a thousand 
years back we sounded such a word as ^sc, which we 
now call Ashy with the hard or the soft sound. But in any 
case we may be sure that there had been a time when it was 
sounded hard. Still I may tell you a few things which seem 
pretty plain. E before a vowel at the beginning of words, 
as Eadweard, Eoforwic^ was clearly sounded like y or the 
High-Dutch / Thus we still write York^ and Yedward is 
found in Shakespeare, and Earl is in Scotland sounded Yerl, 
like the Danish JarL G at the beginning of words has in 
modern English often sunk into jv, as we say year for gear^ 
and as in some parts of England gate is called yett. So in 
names, you know that the old name Eadgyth has got softene*^' 
into Edith, In Domesday it is written Eddid and Eddiet 
which looks as if the g was sounded like y. But in Eadga? 
the g keeps its place to this day ; no one would call Edgar 
Edar, I think that, if you sound the two names several 
times, you will tell why the g got first softened and then lost in 
the one name, while it still abides in the other. G between 
two vowels or at the end of a word must have been sounded 
much as it is in High-Dutch. But it is plain that by the 
eleventh century it was sounded very faintly, for it is often 
left out. So in modern English it is always left out in the 
middle of a word, as Thegn^ Thane; regen, rain; while at 
the end of a word it becomes y^ as dceg^ day ; weg^ way, 
HI at the beginning of words was no doubt sounded like 
// in Welsh; a sound which we have quite lost, but which 
is easily made by breathing, neither before nor after the /, 



OLD-ENGLISH WORDS A.\D NAMES. xvii 

but as you sound it. Hw is simply what we now write wh ; 
for I hope that everybody who reads this book takes care 
to distinguish whef^ which, and whether from wet, witch, 
and weather. Long i with an accent, as wiii, luif, tim, ririi, 
was certainly sounded as it is now, like ei in High-Dutch. 
We now mark the long vowel by an e at the end, iviiie, wife, 
time, and we ought to write riine, only printers choose to 
spell it rhyme, because they fancy it is a Greek word. Rim, 
meaning number, should thus be written 7'ime without the h ; 
while hrim, meaning hoar-frost, should be written rhijne, Hr 
and en at the beginning of wards should be sounded fully, 
as a Welshman can still sound the hr and as a High-Dutch- 
man can still sound the en, H at the middle or end of a 
/liable, as U/^tred, ^Ifhea/^, was doubtless a guttural, like 
cne Scotch, Welsh, or High-Dutch ch. We commonly write 
it gh in modern English, but we either drop the sound or 
else sound it like f. Long a with an accent answers in 
modern Enghsh to o, as stdn, stone, dcf, oath ; but I cannot 
be sure that it was sounded so, at least not everywhere, 
as in the North they still say stane and aith, while in High- 
Dutch we have stein and eid. E at the end of a word, as 
Qoawine, m.ust have been sounded, but sounded very slightly. 
You should not sound the last syllable like wine, w^hich, as 
I have just said, is win. 

In what I have now been saying, I do not at all pretend 
to say all that might be said, or even all that I might be 
able to say myself in a larger book. But I think I have 
said enough to make you think about the matter and to try 

b 



viii OLD-ENGLISH WORDS AND NAMES. 

and find out more for yourselves. About proper names you 
may learn a great deal from the second volume of Miss 
.Yonge's "History of Christian Names." 

As I have had to bring in a few Welsh names, and as 
the Welsh sound many letters very differently from the Eng- 
lish, I may as well tell you how they are to be sounded. F 
is sounded like v^ but j^ like /; ;^ as a vowel is s^ounded like 
00^ and aw like oiu .; u is sounded like i in it^ and y like u 
in but^ except when it is in the last syllable of a word, when 
it is sounded like i in it. Dd is sounded like the English 
S or tk ; so you will see that the name Gruffydd, .though it 
looks so odd, is sounded as we commonly spell it in English, 
Griffith. Also, remember in Welsh words of three syllables 
to put the accent on the second always, as M organ wg, 
Llywelyn, Caradoc, Meredydd. The last name is in English 
often wrongly sounded Mereditii ; Caradoc has got shortened 
into Craddock, which is not so bad a change. 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 



C^SAR lands in Britain B.C. 55; 54" 

Caius threatens to invade Britain A.D. 4.0 

Claudius in Britain 43 

Caradoc subdued by Ostorius 50 

Revolt of Boadicea 61 

Agricola builds his line of forts ^ 81 

Hadrian makes his wall 121 

Lollius makes the wall of Antoninus . 139 

Severus builds his wall 207— 210 

Martyrdom of Saint Alban 304 

Constantine proclaimed Emperor 306 

Theodosius recovers Valentia 368 

The Roman legions leave Britain 4-10 

The English Conquest begins. — Hengest begins the Kingdom 

of Kent 4.49 

^lle and Cissa begin the Kingdom of Sussex 477 

^lle and Cissa take Anderida 491 

Cerdic and Cynric begin the Kingdom of Wessex 495 

Arthur defeats the English at Badbury 520 

Ida begins the Kingdom of Nor thzimber land 547 

Ceawlin King of the West-Saxons 556 

yElla King of Deira . 559 

Battle of Deorham 577 

Gregory the Great Pope 590 

Augustine converts ^thelberht 597 

^thelfrith defeats the Scots at Daegsanstan 603 

^thelfrith defeats the Welsh at Chester 607 

PaulUnus converts Edwin 627 

b 2 



XX CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

A.D. 

Edwin slain by Penda at Heathfield ........... 633 

Oswald defeats Caedwalla at Heavenfield . 635 

Cwichelm and Cynegils first Christian Kings of the West-Saxons. . 639 

Oswald slain by Penda at Maserfield . ^ 642 

Ithamar of Rochester the first English Bishop 644 

Cenwealh defeats the Welsh at Bradford . . . i 652 

Oswiu defeats and slays Penda 655 

Wulf here King of the Mercians 657 

Cenwealh defeats the Welsh at Pen 658 

Ecgfrith King of the Northumbrians ........... 670 

Bseda bom . . . ^ ^ . . 672 

Sexburh Queen of the West-Saxons ........... 672 

Wilfrith converts the South- Saxons 681 

Ceadwalla King of the West-Saxons 685 

Ine King of the W^est-Saxons 688 

The Church of Wells founded 704 

Battle of Wanborough 714 

Taunton burned by ^Ethelburh 722 

Ine goes to Rome ................. 726 

^Ethelbald takes Somerton , ■. 733 

Cuthred King of the West- Saxons. . , ^ 740 

Rebellion of ^thelhun 750 

Cuthred defeats ^thelbald at Burford 752 

Sigeberht King of the West-Saxons 754 

Sigeberht deposed by his Wise Men and Cynewulf elected .... 755 

Death of ^thelbald — Offa King of the Mercians 755 

Eadberht of Northumberland takes Alcluyd 756 

Charles the Great King of the Franks 768 

Offa takes Bensington , 777 

Cynewulf killed by Cyneheard 784 

Lichfield an Archbishoprick 786 

First landing of the Danes 787 

^thelberht murdered by Offa . 7^2 

Death of Offa — Cenwulf King of the Mercians 794. 

Charles the Great crowned Emperor — Ecgberht King of the West- 
Saxons 800 

Ecgberht ravages Cornwall 813 

Cenwulf of Mercia ravages Gwynedd ^\Q 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. xxi 

A.D. 

Cenwulf ravages Dyfed 819 

Beomwulf conquers Powys 822 

Ecgberht defeats Beornwulf at Ellandun, and gains the lordship over 

Kent, Sussex, and East-Anglia 823 

Xorthumberland submits to Ecgberht 827 

Wiglaf receives the crown of -Slercia from Ecgberht — submission of 

the Welsh 828 

The Danes defeat Ecgberht at Charmouth — Ecgberht defeats the 

Danes and Welsh at Hengestesdun 835 

.'Ethelwulf succeeds Ecgberht 836 

The Danes reach London 839 

Battle at the mouth of the Pan'et 845 

Alfred bom 849 

The Danes take Canterbury and London, but are defeated by xLLthel- 

\Y^J^i at Ockley 851 

vEtheh^-ulf helps Burhred of ^lercia against the Welsh 853 

Alfred sent to Rome 853 

The Danes winter in Sheppey 855 

^thelwulf goes to Rome 855 

/Ethehvulf marries Judith on his way home 856 

^^thel\ATilf dies ; ^^thelbald succeeds 858 

yEthelbald dies ; ^thelberht succeeds 860 

^thelberht dies ; ^thelred succeeds ; the Danes land in East-Anglia 866 

The Danes take York 867 

^thelred and Alfred help Burhred against the Danes . . . . .868 
The Danes conquer East Anglia ; martyrdom of Saint Edmund . . 870 
The Danes enter Wessex ; Battles of Englefield, Reading, Ashdo^\^l, 
Basing and ^lerton ; death of yEthelred and election of Alfred ; 
Battle of Wilton; peace between the Danes and West-Saxons 871 

The Danes invade Z^Iercia ; Burhred goes to Rome 874 

Alfred defeats the Danes by sea 875 

The Danes under Healfdene settle in Deira 876 

The Danes under Guthorm enter Wessex . 876 

The Danes leave Wessex and settle in part of ^lercia 877 

Guthorm enters Wessex ; Alfred takes shelter at Athelney ; Battle 
of Ethandun ; Peace of Wedmore ; yEthelred Alderman of 

Western Mercia 878 

Guthorm settles in East-Anglia 880 



xxii CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. 

A.D. 

Alfred defeats the Danes at sea 882 

Alfred drives the Danes from Rochester; the Welsh Princes submit 

to him 885 

Alfred repairs London 886 

Charles the Fat deposed and the Empire divided 888 

Arnulf defeated the Danes at Lowen . . . . ,.,.... 89 1 
Hasting lands in Kent and is helped by the Danes in East- Anglia . . 893 
Alfred takes Appledore ; the Danes defeated at Buttington .... 894 

Birth of ^Ethelstan 895 

The war v^^ith the Danes goes on ... . . ...... 895-6 

Alfred improves his navy ; the Danes leave Wessex 897 

Alfred dies; Edward the Elder chosen King; revolt of ^thelwald, 

who takes refuge with the Danes 901 

^Ethelwald and the Danes attack Wessex ; death of ^thelwald . . 904 

Peace between Edward and Guthorm 906 

The Danish wars begin again ; Battle of Tettenhall ; Edward and his 

sister ^thelflaed begin to fortify various posts 910 

Battle of Wednesfield ; ^thelflaed rules alone in Mercia . . . .911 
Rolf settles in Gaul ; beginning of the Duchy of Normandy . . .913 

The Danes driven away from Somersetshire and Wales 915 

Death of ^thelflaed ; Edward annexes Mercia to Wessex . . . . 918 
All Essex, East- Anglia, and Danish Mercia submits to Edward . . 921 
The Welsh Kings " seek Edward to lord "..,.,.... 922 

Raegnald takes York 923 

All the Northumbrians, Scots, and Strathclyde Welsh " chose Edward 

to father and lord " 924 

Death of Edward ; yEthelstan chosen King. 925 

The Welsh, Scots, and Northumbrians submit to ^thelstan ; he drives 

the Welsh from Exeter and fortifies the city ...... 926 

Edwin the ^theling drowned at sea 933 

^thelstan ravages Scotland ^ . 934 

Battle of Brunanburh 937 

^thelstan dies ; Edmund chosen King 940 

Edmund recovers the Five Boroughs ; Richard the Fearless Duke of 

the Normans 941 

Division of England between Edmund and Anlaf 942 

Birth of Edgar 943 

Edmund recovers Northumberland 944 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. xxiii 



A.D. 



Edmund conquers Cumberland and grants it as a fief to ]^Ialcolm of 

Scotland 945 

Edmund murdered by Liofa ; Eadred chosen King ; the Northum- 
brians and Scots acknowledge him 946 

The Northumbrians again acknowledge Eadred ..... ^ . 947 

The Northumbrians rebel under Eric 948 

The Northumbrians finally submit and the land becomes an Earldom 954 
Eadred dies; Eadwig chosen King; Edgar reigns as Under-king in 

Mercia 955 

Dunstan banished 956 

The Mercians revolt; Edgar recalls Dunstan 957 

Oda divorces Eadwig and ^Ifgifu 958 

Eadwig dies; Edgar chosen King; Dunstan Archbishop . . . . 959 

Edgar at York , . . 961 

Edgar subdues Idwal's revolt . 963 

Edgar marries ^Ifthryth . 964 

Westmorland harried 966 

Thanet harried; ^^thelred bom 969 

Edgar crowned at Bath ; his triumph at Chester 973 

Edgar dies; disputed election; Edward chosen King; disputes about 

the monks and the secular clergy . 975 

Various synods held 977 

Edward murdered ; ^E^thelred chosen King , . . 979 

The Danish invasion begun again ..,...-...,.. 980 

Swegen King of the Danes 985 

Invasion of Olaf; Hugh Capet chosen King of the French. . . . 987 
Battle of Maldon; death of Brihtnoth; money first paid to the 

Danes ; ^thelred's dispute with Richard the Fearless ^ . . 991 

.Elfric's treason; victory of the English at sea 992 

The Danes ravage Lindsey ; flight of the three Thanes ..... 993 
Invasion of Swegen and Olaf; the two Kings beaten off by the 

Londoners 994 

Olaf makes peace and goes home; Swegen continues the war . . . 995 

The Danes go on ravaging 997—999 

.^thelred ravages Cumberland;^ the Danes go to Normandy; 

.Ethelred's fleet ravages the Cotentin lOOO 

The Danes return and are driven back from Exeter ; battle at Pen- 

l^ow 1001 



xxiv CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE, 

A.D. 

i^thelred marries Emma ; tribute paid to the Danes ; massacre of 

Saint Brice 1002 

Swegen takes Exeter ; treason of ^Ifric ; Swegen burns Salisbury 

and Wilton 1003 

Swegen burns Norwich and Thetford; drawn battle between him 

and Ulfcytel 1004 

Famine 1005 

^Ifhelm murdered by Eadric; the Danes ravage the inland parts 
of Wessex ; Malcolm besieges Durham, but is driven back 

by Uhtred 1006 

Tribute paid again 1007 

The Fleet made ready 1008 

The Fleet at Sandwich ; flight of Vvulfnoth ; invasion of Thurkill . 1009 

The Danes in East-Anglia ; Battle of Ringmere lOlO 

Tribute again offered ; the Danes take Canterbury and keep Arch- 
bishop yElfheah in bonds lOll 

Martyrdom of yElfheah ; Thurkill joins the English ; Eadric ravages 

Saint David's 1012 

Invasion of Swegen and Cnut ; Northumberland submits ; London 
holds out ; final submission at Bath ; Swegen acknowledged 

King . 1013 

iEthelred takes refuge in Normandy; death of Swegen; Cnut 
chosen King by the Danes, but ^thelred restored by the 
English Witan ; Cnut mutilates his hostages and goes back 

to Denmark 1014- 

Witenagemot at Oxford ; Sigeferth and Morkere murdered by 
Eadric; Edmund marries Sigeferth's widow and establishes 
himself in the Five Boroughs ; Cnut comes back ; the 
West- Saxons submit to Cnut while Edmund holds out in 

the North ' 1015 

Northumberland submits to Cnut ; murder of Uhtred ; death of 
^thelred ; Edmund elected King in London and Cnut at 
Southampton ; Battles of Pen Selwood, Sherstone, Brent- 
ford, Otford and Assandun ; conference at Olney; division 

of the Kingdom ; death of Edmund 1016 

Cnut finally elected and crowned ; the yEthelings and others put 
to death or banished ; Cnut marries Emma ; Eadric put to 
death . ioi7 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE. xxv 

A.D. 

A great Danegeld laid on ; Edgar's law renewed at Oxford . . . 10I8 

Godwine made Earl of the West- Saxons 1020 

The body of Samt ^Elfheah translated to Canterbury 1023 

Cnut's Pilgrimage to Rome ; birth of William the Conqueror . . 1027 

Cnut puts forth a code of laws (?) 1028 

Scotland submits to Cnut 1031 

Death of Cnut ; disputed election between Harold and Harthacnut ; 

the Kingdom divided 1035 

Pilgrimage and death of Robert of Normandy ; William succeeds ; 

murder of the ^theling Alfred 1036 

Harold King over all England 1037 

Harthacnut chosen King ; he lays on a Danegeld ; he digs up the 

body of Harold 1040 

Worcester ravaged by order of Harthacnut ; Edward the son of 

zEthelred comes back to England 1041 

Death of Harthacnut ; Edward chosen King 1042 

Edward crowned ; Emma despoiled of her treasures 1043 

Stigand Bishop of the East- Angles ; banishment of Gunhild and 

others 1044 

Edward marries Edith the daughter of Godwine ; threatened inva- 
sion of Magnus of Xorway 1045 

Swegen the son of Godwine overcomes Gruffydd of South Wales ; 

he throws up his Earldom and goes to Denmark .... 1046 
War in the North ; help refused to Swegen of Denmark ; William 

of Normandy defeats the rebels at Yal-es-dunes .... 1047 
England in alliance with the Emperor Henry against Baldwin of 
Flanders ; the restoration of Swegen's Earldom refused ; 
Swegen murders his cousin Beorn ; Bishop Ealdred defeated 
by the Welsh ; Ulf made Bishop of Dorchester .... io49 
The Norman influence increases ; Robert of Jumieges made Arch- 
bishop of Canterbuiy 1050 

Edward remits the Heregeld; outrages of Eustace of Dover; God- 
wine demands justice ; meetings at Gloucester and London ; 

Godwine and his family banished 105I 

William of Normandy visits Edward ; death of Emma ; return 
of Godwine ; Archbishop Robert and other Normans 

outlawed 1052 

Death of Earl Godwine ; Harold Earl of the West-Saxons . , . 1053 



xxvi CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE, 

A. D. 

Siward invades Scotland and defeats Macbeth ; Bishop Ealdred 
goes on an embassy to the Emperor to bring back the 

^thehng Edward 1054 

Death of Siward ; Tostig Earl of the Northumbrians ; ^Elfgar is 
outlawed and joins Gruffydd of North Wales ; they defeat 
Ralph, and burn Hereford ; Harold's first Welsh campaign ; 
he restores Hereford ;. peace with Gruffydd ; /Elfgar restored 

to his Earldom 1055 

Invasion of Gruffydd and Magnus ; death of Bishop Leofgar . . 1056 
Return and death of the ^Etheling Edward ; deaths of Earls Leofric 

and Ralph ; Earldoms given to Gyrth and Leofwine . . . 1057 

Harold goes on a pilgrimage to Rome (?) 1058 

The minster at Waltham consecrated by Archbishop Cynesige ; he 
dies and is succeeded by Ealdred ; Walter and Gisa Bishops 

of Hereford and Wells 1060 

Tostig, Ealdred and Walter and Gisa all go to Rome . . . . . 1061 

Saint Wulfstan Bishop of Worcester 1062 

Harold's march to Rhuddlan ; his great Welsh campaign ; Wales 

submits and Gruffydd killed by his own people 1063 

Probable time of Harold's visit to Normandy and oath to W^illiam ; 
murder of Gospatric and other Northumbrian Thanes by 

order of Tostig 1064 

Ravages of Caradoc at Portskewet ; revolt of the Northumbrians ; 
banishment of Tostig y sickness of Edward ; consecration 
of Westminster ,.,....... 1065 

1066 

Edward dies ; Harold elected King . . . .• . . . . .. , . Jan. 5 

Edward buried ; Harold crowned' j, 6 

Harold wins over Northumberland with the help of Bishop Wulf- 
stan ya?i\ 15 — Ap7'il 16 

Harold's Easter Feast at Westminster .■ . April 16 — 23 

The Comet „ 24 — 30 

Tostig ravages Wight and Lindesey and takes refuge in Scotland May 

Great preparations of Harold May — Sept. 

Harold's army disbanded Sept. 8 

Invasion of Tostig and Harold ECardrada; they ravage the York- 
shire coast and land at Riccall 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE, xxvii- 

A.D. 

1066 

Battle of Fulford Sept. 20 

York surrenders to Harold Hardrada ; Harold of England reaches 

Tadcaster 

Battle of Stamfordbridge , 

William sets sail from Saint Valery . , 

William lands at Pevensey 

William marches to Hastings 

Harold marches to London and collects troops , ... , Oct. 
Harold marches from London and encamps on Senlac . . „ 

Battle of Senlac ^ . „ 

Edgar chosen King ; Edwin and Morkere withdraw to their Earl- 
doms Oct, 15 — Nov, I 

William returns to Hastings r> ^5 

William marches to Romney 5, 20 

Dover submits sr ^i 

Canterbury submits -....„ 29 

William's sickness ; submission of Winchester . . . . „ 31 — Dec. i 
Skirmish near London ; burning of Southwark ; William marches 

to Wallingford • submission at Berkhampstead . . . . „ 
Coronation of William . , ...,,,., .^2^ 







24 






25 






27 






28 






29 


I- 


-12 


12, 


13 


I 


\ 





CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

WHO FIRST LIVED IN BRITAIN , . . i . I 



CHAPTER IE 

HOW BRITAIN WAS CONQUERED BY THE ROMANS 9 

CHAPTER in, 

HOW BRITAIN WAS A ROMAN PROVINCE , , 1 6 

CHAPTER IV, 

HOW BRITAIN BECAME ENGLAND 22 

CHAPTER V, 

HOW THE ENGLISH KINGDOMS IN BRITAIN WERE FOUNDED . . ^2 






CONTENTS, 



CHAPTER VI. 



PAGE 
HOW THE ENGLISH BECAME CHRISTIANS ,..,.,....,. 42 



CHAPTER VIL 

HOAV THE KINGS OF THE WEST-SAXONS BECAME LORDS OVER ALL 

ENGLAND ^ -.,... 6^ 



CHAPTER VHL 

HOW THE DANES CAME INTO ENGLAND, AND HOW ENGLAND 

BECAME ONE KINGDOM. . . . lOO 



CHAPTER IX. 

OF THE KINGS OF THE ENGLISH FROM THE TIME THAT ENGLAND 

BECAME ONE KINGDOM TILL THE DANES CAME AGAIN , . I48 



CHAPTER X. 

HOW THE DANES CONQUERED AND REIGNED IN ENGLAND . . • 1B7 

CHAPTER XL 

THE REIGN OF KING EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. (IO42 — 1066) , . 253 



• 

CONTENTS. xxxi 



CHAPTER XII. 

PAGE 

THE REIGN OF KING HAROLD THE SON OF GODWINE. JANUARY 6 

— OCTOBER 14, 1066 298 



-CHAPTER XIII. 

THE INTERREGNUM, OCTOBER I4 — DECEMBER 25, I066 .... 340 



LIST OF MAPS. 



To face page 
I. NORTH-WESTERN EUROPE IN TPIE FOURTH CENTURY . . 1 7 



2. BRITAIN AT THE BEGINNING OF THE SEVENTH CENTURY 39 



3. NORTH-WESTERN EUROPE AT THE END OF THE NINTH 

CENTURY 134 



4. BRITAIN IN THE NINTH AND TENTH CENTURIES . . . I44 



5. BRITAIN AT THE DEATH OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR, 
1066, SHOWING THE EARLDOMS AND DEPENDENT 
KINGDOMS 280 



OLD ENGLISH HISTORY 
FOR CHILDREN. 

CHAPTER L 

WHO FIRST LIVED IN BRITAIN. 

The country in which we live is called England, that is to say, 
the land of the English. But it was not always called England, 
because there were not always Englishmen living in it. The 
old name of the land was Britain. And we still call the whole 
island in which we live Great Britain, of which England is the 
southern part and Scotland the northern. We call it Great 
Britain, because there is another country also called Britain, 
namely, the north-western corner of Gaul ; but this last we 
now generally call Brittany. The two names, however, are 
really the same, and both are called in Latin Brita7i7iia. 

In the old days then, when the land was called only Britain, 
Englishmen had not yet begun to live in it. Our forefathers 
then lived in other lands, and had not yet come into the land 
where we now live ; but there was an England even then, namely 
the land in which Englishmen then lived. If you look in a 
map of Denmark or of Northern Gennany, you will see on the 
Baltic Sea a little land called Angeln; that is the same name as 
E7igland. I do not mean that all our forefathers came out of 
that one little land of Angeln ; but they all came from that part 
of the world, from the lands near the mouth of the Elbe, and 
that one little land has kept the English name to this day. 

B 



2 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

It is a long time, fourteen hundred years and more, since our 
forefathers began to come from their old land by the mouth ot 
the Elbe and to live in the Isle of Britain. And when they came 
here, they did not come into a land where no men were dwell- 
ing, so that they could sit down and live in it without any 
trouble. They found a land in which men were already living, 
and they had to fight against the men whom they found 
in the land, and to take their land from them. The men whom 
our forefathers found in the Isle of Britain were not men of 
their own nation or their own speech. They were the men who 
had lived in the land for many ages, and they were called by 
the same name as the land itself, for they were called the 
Britons. But our forefathers called them by. another name, for 
they spoke a tongue which our forefathers did not understand, 
^3<nd in Old-English those who spoke a tongue which could not 
be understood were called Welsh. So our forefathers called 
the men whom they found in the land the Welsh. And the 
children of those men, the children of the men who lived in the 
Isle of Britain before our forefathers came into it, we call the 
Welsh to this day. 

Now I wish you to remember from the very beginning that 
we Englishmen came from another land into Britain, that we 
found the Welsh living in Britain before us, and that the land 
which before was called Britain came to be called England 
because Englishmen lived in it. I shall have to tell you all 
this again more at length, and in a way which may make you 
understand it better ; but I want you to get what I have said 
well into your heads from the very first, and you will under- 
stand it better as you go along. And perhaps some of you 
may not very well understand what I mean by different nations 
and languages, so I will try to explain that a little more fully 
before I go on any further. 

I think you must all know that all people in all parts of the 
world do not speak the same tongue or language, that is, they do 
not use the same words when they mean the same things. Thus 
a Frenchman, a German, and an Englishman will often call the 
same things by quite different names. Thus what we call a 
i^^rx^ a Frenchman will call chcval^ and a German will call it Pferd 
or Ross. But some languages are much more like one another 



V/HO FIRST LIVED IN BRITAIN. * 3 

than others. Thus in EngHsh and German all the most common 
words, all the words without which we could not get on at all, 
are really the same. Thus Aorse and J^oss are really the same 
word, and many w^ords in EngHsh and German are yet more 
like one another. When you begin to learn German, you will 
find that all the commonest words, 77mn, wife, child, honse^ 
father, mother, bread, water, ox, sheep, are either exactly the 
same in German and in English, or else so much alike that 
you can see that they were the same once. That is to say, 
there was a time, a very long time ago, when English and 
German were only one language, and when the forefathers of 
the English that are now and the forefathers of the Germans 
that are now w^ere only one people or nation. We commonly 
say that men are of the same people or nation v/hen they live 
in the same country and speak the same language. 

Now the different nations of the world have not always lived 
in the same countries in which they live now. Many of them 
have moved about a great deal and have gone into new lands, 
as Enghshmen now often go and live in Canada and Australia. 
Very often one nation has gone and conquered the country of 
another nation ; that is, it has overcome them in battle, and 
perhaps driven them quite out of the land ; or perhaps it has 
only made them subject to the conquering nation or to its king ; 
or perhaps only part of a nation has done this, while another 
part has stayed in its old land. Thus it often happens that we 
find people in quite different parts of the world speaking the 
same languages, or languages nearly the same, while people who 
live close together speak languages which are quite different. 
This is nowhere plainer than in this Isle of Britain. As I 
said, we came into this island from another land, and we found 
other men living here, and the children of those men whom 
we found here live in our island to this day. So you will find, 
and, if you think a moment, you will see that it is not won- 
derful that it is so, that the other languages which are spoken 
in Britain are quite difterent from English, . while languages 
which are very much more like English are spoken much 
further off. This is because the people whom we found in 
Britain were not our own near kinsfolk, while those of our 
own near kinsfolk who stayed in their own land and did not 

B 2 ' 



4 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

come into Britain went on speaking their own tongue, and still 
speak languages which it is easy to see wxre once the same 
as our own. 

I do not think I need tell any of you that the whole island 
of Great Britain, as well as Ireland and the smaller islands about 
them, now forms only one Kingdom. Queen Victoria is Queen 
over all of them, and her Parliament makes laws for all of 
them, except for two or three small islands. We are all now 
friends and fellows-countrymen, whether we live in England, 
Scotland, Ireland, or Wales. But it was not so always. There 
are still several different languages spoken in the British Islands, 
because quite different nations once lived in them, and those 
nations often fought against and conquered one another. We 
ought to be very glad that it is not so now; but we must take care 
to remember that there have been quite distinct nations living 
in these islands, or we shall never really understand the history. 

There are now three languages spoken in the British Islands, 
our own English tongue and two others. I need not say that 
English is the chief language of the whole countiy. Everybody 
speaks it in England, and most people can speak it in the 
other parts of the islands. But there are still some people in 
Great Britain who cannot speak English at all, and there are 
many to wdiom English is not their own mother-tongue. That is 
to say, they speak their own language and English as well, just 
as you speak English naturally, and yet may some time be able 
also to speak French and German. 

The other two languages spoken in the British Islands are 
the Welsh, of which I have already said something, and the 
Irish. Wales, the land of the Welsh, lies to the west of Eng- 
land, and we often reckon it as part of England. This is be- 
cause for England and Wales there is only one law, while the 
laws of Scotland and Ireland are often different from the law^s 
of England. But in Wales there are still some people who 
cannot speak English at all, and in a large part of the country 
most people speak both Welsh and English. In a large part of 
Ireland nothing but English is spoken. But in other parts 
people speak Irish too, and some do not understand any English 
at all. In the southern part of Scodand everybody speaks 
English. They do not speak it in quite the same way as we 



WHO FIRST LIVED IN BRITAIN. 5 

do ; but it is really the same language, and an Englishman and 
a Scotchman soon get to understand one another. But in the 
northern part of Scotland, which is called the Highlands, there 
is still another language spoken, called Gaelic. But Gaelic and 
Irish are so much alike that it is perhaps best to say that there 
are only three languages spoken in Great Britain and Ireland, 
namely, English, Welsh, and Irish. 

Now I just now said that the other languages which are 
spoken in Britain are much more unlike English than some other 
languages which are spoken much further off, especially in the 
lands which I told you were our old homes. You cannot make 
out a Welshman's or an Irishman's language at all, unless you 
learn it on purpose. But if you take a book in the language 
spoken by the common people in the north of Germany, I do 
not say that you mil understand every word ; but if you are at ail 
quick, you will see that most of the words are the same as Eng- 
lish. That is to say, their language is a kindred language ^\ith 
English, a language of the same group or class. For it is not 
hard to arrange the chief languages of the world in groups or 
classes. Thus not only Geniian and English, but also Dutch, 
Danish, and Swedish, are all so much alike that we may be sure 
that the people who speak them were once all one people. 
These are called the Teutonic languages. Again, though a Welsh- 
man and an Iiishman cannot understand one another, yet there 
is a great likeness bet^veen the Welsh and Irish languages, so 
that we may be sure that the Welsh and the Irish were once 
one people. Their languages are called the Celtic languages. 
The people speaking those languages were once spread over a 
great part of Europe ; but Celtic is not now spoken anpvhere 
but in Ireland, Wales, the Isle of Man, the Highlands of Scot- 
land, and that part of Gaul which is called Brittany. And there 
are many other groups of kindred languages of the same kind. 

But we can go a little further back still. I told you that 
there was one set of languages called Teutonic and another 
called Celtic, and that there was doubtless a time when all 
the Teutonic nations were only one nation, and when all the 
Celtic nations were one other nation. But besides this, learned 
men, who know many languages, have found out that these 
Celtic and Teutonic languages, and many others too, Greek. 



6 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREJSr. 

Latin, Slavonic (which is spoken in Russia, Poland, Servia, and 
other eastern parts of Europe), and the old language of Lithu- 
ania and Eastern Prussia, were all once only one language. 
And, what perhaps you might not have thought of, the old 
languages of Persia and India were also once the same. The 
people who speak all these languages were once all one people, 
and all of them are our kinsfolk, though some are much nearer 
kinsfolk than others. Thus the Welsh themselves are, after all, 
our kinsfolk, though the Germans and Danes and Dutch are 
kinsfolk who are much nearer. The time when all these dif- 
ferent nations were only one people was of course a very long 
time ago, long before any books were written, and before we 
know any history for certain. But those who know the lan- 
guages well can find out from the languages themselves that 
they were once all one language. These languages which were 
once one, are generally called the Aryan languages, from Arya 
er Iran, the old nam_e of Persia. The nations who speak 
these languages now occupy nearly all Europe and a great 
part of Asia. But even in Europe there are some people who 
do not speak an Aryan language. There are two nations, 
the Hungarians and the Turks, who are not Aryans, and who 
have come into Europe in later times since the Aryan nations 
came into it. And there are still some people left in Europe, 
in corners and out-of-the-way places, whose language is not 
Aryan, and whose forefathers were doubtless living in Europe 
before the Aryan nations came into it. These are the Fins in 
the very north of Europe, and the Basques in those wild 
mountainous parts of Spain which nobody has ever been able 
thoroughly to conquer. Now these people no doubt once 
occupied a much larger part of Europe than they do now, and 
it is not unlikely that some of them may once have lived in 
the British Islands before the first Aryan people came into 
them. But, if so, they must have been quite destroyed, 
and not merely driven into corners, for there certainly are none 
of them living in Britain now. 

Now I will tell you a reason for thinking it very likely that 
some people who were not Aryan once lived in Britain. ' It 
does not seem that any of the Aryan people were ever mere 
savages, such as travellers and voyagers have often found in 



WHO FIRST LIVED IN BRITAIN. 7 

distant parts of the world. Yet, from things which have been 
found in old graves and elsewhere, both in Britain and else- 
where, it seems most likely that people once lived in Britain 
who must have been mere savages, without the use of metal, peo- 
ple who lived wholly by hunting and fishing. They had arrows 
and spear-heads of flint, and axes and hammers of stone. 
Think what trouble it must have been to do the commonest 
things with such tools. After them came a time when men 
had the use of bronze, and, last of all, the use of iron, as we have 
now. You may have heard of buildings, if Ave may call them 
buildings, made of great rough stones, which are called crom- 
lechs. These have often been mistaken for altars, but they 
really are graves. Huge uncut stones were piled up without 
being joined by any mortar, and they were covered over with 
earth and smaller stones, so as to make a tump or barrow. 
These cromlechs, it seems most likely, are the graves of the 
first dwellers in the land, who had no use of metal. Of these 
very early times we can find out nothing, except from graves 
and such like remains, as of course we have no books that were 
written then. But there is every reason to think that the people 
who made these great and strange works were the oldest people 
who lived in these islands, and that the Celts, the Welsh and 
Irish, came into the land and quite destroyed them. Then, ages 
afterwards, our oa\t) forefathers came from North Germany, and 
destroyed or drove out the Celts from a great part of the Isle of 
Britain, but left them in other parts, where they still stay and 
still speak their own tongues. I wish I could tell you more about 
our own forefathers before they came into Britain. You will of 
course understand that the little which we know of them is 
part of the history of Germany and not part of the history of 
Britain. What little I have to say about them I shall say in 
another chapter; but I will tell you this much now, that there 
is no doubt that our fathers had always been a free people, 
and had never had any other people ruling over them in their 
own land. Now it was not so with the men whom they found 
in Britain ; for before the English came into Britain, the 
AVelsh had been conquered by the Romans. Who the Romans 
were, and how they conquered Britain, I shall tell you in the 
next chapter. 



8 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN, 

This present chapter I am afraid you may have thought 
rather hard, as there are no pleasant stories in it, such as you 
will often hear in other parts of my history. But, to under- 
stand thoroughly what comes after, you ought to keep clearly 
in your mind the succession of the different nations one after 
another. And I do not think that I have written anything 
which you cannot understand, if you think a little and look well 
at a good map. So now I will put the whole together for you 
in a few words. 

In the British Isles there are still three languages spoken, 
English, Welsh, and Irish. All these are Aryan languages. 
Of these, English is a Teutonic language, while Welsh and 
Irish are Celtic languages. Our forefathers came from the 
countries near the Elbe, and conquered, but did not wholly 
destroy, the Welsh or Britons who were already living in the 
island. All this we know for certain; but it also seems likely, 
though it is not certain, that, before the Celts came into 
Britain, there was a savage people in the island whom the 
Celts quite destroyed, and about whom we can tell nothing^ 
except from things which have been found in their graves. 



CHAPTER II. 

HOW BRITAIN WAS CONQUERED BY THE ROMANS. 

The first people then who lived in the Isle of Britain of whom 
we really know anything were the Celts, that is to say, the Irish 
and the Welsh ; and the first people of whom we know anything 
in that part of the island which is called England were the 
Welsh or Britons. But we know very little of the times when 
the Welsh lived in Britain as their own land, before the Romans 
conquered them. There are a great many strange stories told 
about their history, but nothing was written about these things 
till hundreds of years after the times when they are said to have 
happened. Therefore we cannot really believe anything that 
is told us about them. In those old times all the greatest 
nations of the world, those which were w^hat is called civilized^ 
lived round about the Mediterranean Sea. There dwelled the 
nations who lived under the best laws, who could build the 
finest buildings, who had the greatest and wisest men among 
them, who first did things worth being remembered, and who 
first wTOte those things down in books, in order that men 
might remember them. There lived the old Greeks who were 
so famous, and the Romans and other nations of Italy who were 
so famous somewhat later. Some of you "will some day learn their 
languages, Greek and Latin. These are both Aryan languages, 
and you will find it very pleasant when you learn Greek to see 
how many of the commonest words are really the same in Greek 
and in English. But in all the Northern and Western parts of 
Europe, where the Teutonic and Celtic nations lived, the people 
were still very rude and ignorant, and they and the civilized 
nations near the Mediterranean Sea knew very little about one 
another. You may perhaps be surprised to hear that many of 



lo OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

the great Greek writers, whose names you may have heard, and 
whose books you may one day read, had most hkely never 
heard of the Isle of Britain, and that they certainly knew nothing 
at all of the Enghsh in their own older land. Though the 
Greeks were very good sailors in their own seas, yet their ships 
were not made to go such long voyages as our ships can go now, 
and they hardly ever went out of the Mediterranean and the 
other inland seas which join it. They knew very little of 
the Ocean or outer sea, and for a long time they did not think 
that it was a sea at all, but they fancied that Ocean was a river 
limning round the earth. 

But there were another people called the Phoenicians, who, 
though they were in most things not nearly so great and wise a 
people as the Greeks, were much more likely than the Greeks 
to find out something about the Isle of Britain. They were 
not an Aryan people, and the language which they spoke was 
much the same as the Hebrew, the language spoken by the 
Jews. We first hear of the Phoenicians in Tyre and Sidon and 
the neighbouring cities, which are often spoken of in the Bible. 
If you look at a map, you will see these cities and the old land 
of the Phoenicians at the very east end of the Mediterranean 
Sea. The Phoenicians were very fond of trade, that is, of buy- 
ing and selling, and so getting rich ; and they were the first 
people who made long voyages in order to buy and sell. They 
were also the first people who began to plant Cohmics in dift'erent 
places. Perhaps you do not very well know what a colony is, 
though I think you must have sometimes heard of our own 
English colonies in America and Australia and other lands 
far away. At any rate you know how the bees swarm ; how, 
when the hive is too full, the young bees fly away and live 
somewhere else. The young bees then found a colony, and men 
do just the same. When a land is so full that all the people 
cannot find room enough to live in it, or when many people are 
discontented with their own country and would rather live some- 
where else, or even when they think that they can buy and sell 
better by living somewhere else, men will often go to some other 
land, and find themselves a new country there. They go some- 
where where nobody lives, or where the people who do live are 
easily conquered. So our fathers did in Britain ages ago, and 



HOW BRITAIN WAS CONQUERED BY THE ROMANS, ii 

SO we do now in New Zealand and other lands far away. Men 
thus leave their old land and take to themselves a new land and 
dwell in it, and build them cities and live as a new people. 
Such a new city and country is called a colony of the old land 
from w^hence its people first came. Now both the Greeks and 
the Phoenicians were great planters of colonies ; indeed, nearly 
the whole of the Mediterranean Sea had Phoenician and Greek 
colonies scattered along its coasts. I say along its coasts, for 
both the Greeks and the Phoenicians were people who loved the 
sea, and seldom liked to live very far inland. Thus you Avill find 
both Greek and Phoenician cities far away from old Greece and 
old Phoenicia, cities which were colonies of the old cities in Greece 
and Phoenicia themselves. Just so now-a-days there are English- 
men in America and Australia, and not only in England itself 

Thus both the Greeks and the Phoenicians loved the sea, and 
both loved trade, and both planted colonies and built cities in 
far-off lands. But the Phoenicians were the bolder seamen of 
the two ; they began to sail far away and to settle in other lands 
sooner than the Greeks did, and they sailed to and settled in 
lands further off from their own land than the Greeks ever did. 
There never was any Greek colony beyond the Strait which 
joins the Mediterranean Sea aiid the Ocean, and there were 
very few Greek colonies in any part of Spain at all. But the 
Phoenicians had passed the Strait and had built the city of 
Gades or Cadiz, before the Greeks had planted any colonies even 
in Italy and Sicily. Cadiz is the oldest city in Europe which 
still remains great and flourishing, for it has been a great and 
flourishing city ever since it was built by Phoenician settlers 
nearly three thousand years ago. And besides Cadiz there were 
many other Phoenician cities both in Spain and on the north 
coast of Africa, the greatest of which was the famous city of 
Carthage. Thus you see how the Phoenicians, who were bolder 
sailors and were not afraid of the Ocean, were more likely to 
find out something about the Isle of Britain than the Greeks 
were. Some people have thought that Phoenician traders them- 
selves sailed as far as Britain, and bought the tin which is found 
in Cornwall and the Scilly Islands, and even perhaps worked 
the mines themselves. If this really was so, we must of course 
suppose that these wxre Phoenicians from Cadiz and the other 



12 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN, 

cities in Spain and Africa, and not from the old cities of Tyre 
and Sidon. But there is no good reason to beheve that the 
Phoenicians ever settled in Britain, and for my own part I very 
much doubt whether they ever came to Britain at all. Still 
there can be no doubt that the Phoenicians learned something 
about Britain from the people who lived nearer to the island, 
and who sold them the tin and the other things which came 
thence. We can hardly tell for certain how it was, for there are 
very few Phoenician books or writings left, and none w^hich tell 
us anything about Britain. But we cannot doubt that, through 
these Phoenician traders, some little knowledge about Britain 
found its way to the nations round about the Mediterranean 
Sea. They at least learned that there was such an island, and 
that tin was to be found there. 

The time when we first begin really to know anything about 
Britain is between fifty and sixty years before the birth of our 
Lord Jesus Christ. You know, I suppose, that that is the way in 
which Christian nations reckon time ; such a thing happened so 
many years before, or so many years after, the birth of Christ. 
At that time the greatest people in the world were the Romans. 
These were originally the people of the city of Rome in Italy. 
They were not so bold at sea as the Phoenicians, nor were 
they so clever and learned a people as the Greeks. They could 
not build such fine temples, .or carve such beautiful statues, or 
make such eloquent speeches and poems as the Greeks could ; 
but they were the best soldiers and the wisest law-makers that 
the w^orld ever saw. At Rome, in the best days of Rome, 
every man knew both how to command and how to obey. 
The Romans chose their own rulers ; but w^hen they had chosen 
them, they submitted to all their lawful commands. They made 
their own laws ; but they did not think that, because they made 
the laws, they might therefore break them. Thus they were 
able gradually to conquer, first all Italy, and then nearly all 
the world that they knew of, that is, all the countries round 
about the Mediterranean Sea. The people of Italy itself they 
gradually admitted to the same rights as themselves, so that at 
the time of which I am speaking, every Italian was reckoned as 
a Roman ; but the lands out of Italy they made into Provinces^ 
and the people of those lands were their subjects. There was 



HOW BRITAIN WAS CONQUERED BY THE ROMANS. 13 

no King at Rome, but the people of the Provinces had to obey 
the laws made by the Senate and People of Rome, and to be 
governed by the magistrates whom the Romans sent to rule 
over them. The Romans were very proud of their freedom 
in having no King or master of any kind, and for a long time 
they were worthy of their freedom, and used it well ; but after a 
while the nation became much corrupted, and their freedom 
became little more than confusion and quarrelling with one 
another. The tmth is that the Romans were now far too great 
a people to be governed in the same way which had done so 
well for them when they were the people of only one city. 
And for the Provinces it would always have been better if the 
Romans had had a King or even a Tyrant,^ because one master 
is always better than many. 

At this time the Roman governor in Gaul was named Caius 
Julius Caesar. He is one of the most famous men in the 
whole history of the world. In many things he was a very bad 
man, and he thought more of his OAvn greatness than of the 
good of his country ; but there was much in him which made 
men love him, and as a soldier and a ruler hardly any man has 
ever been greater. Before his time the Roman Province of 
Gaul was only a small part of the country; Caesar gradually 
conquered all Gaul, and he next \vished to conquer Britain 
also, as it was so near Gaul, \vith only a narrow arm of the sea 
between them. He t\vice came over to Britain with his army, 
but he only visited the southern part of the island, and he 
cannot be said to have conquered any part of it. Britain did 
not become a Roman Province, nor did Caesar leave any Roman 
governor or Roman soldiers behind him. Still this coming over 
of Caesar to Britain was a very important event. From that 
time Britain became much more known to the rest of the world 
than it had ever been before. Now that C^sar had conquered 
all Gaul, parts of Britain could be seen from parts of the 

^ A Tyrant originally meant a man who gets to himself the power of 
a King in a country where there is not any King by law. Under the 
Roman Empire it meant an usurper or pretender in opposition to a lawful 
Emperor. In neither of these cases does the word prove anything as 
to the goodness or badness of the Tyrant's government. But the word is 
now more often used to mean a cruel or bad ruler of any kind. 



14 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN, 

Roman dominions. A great deal more trade went on between 
Britain and other countries than had ever gone on before. 
And men at Rome often thought and spoke of making Britain 
a Roman Province as well as Gaul ; but it was not till a good 
many years after Caesar's time that this was really done. 

Some years after Caesar was in Britain there was a civil war 
among the Romans. Perhaps you do not know what I mean by 
a Civil war. It is a war, not between two nations, but between 
men of the same nation, betw^een fellow-countrymen or fellow- 
citizens, who in Latin are called Gives, Thus there was a war 
between Caesar and his party and another great Roman called 
Pompeius and his party, and the end was that Caesar became 
master of Rome and of all the Roman dominions, with all the 
power of a King, though he was not called King, but Dictator. 
But many of the Romans did not like having a master; for 
though C^sar was not a harsh or bloody ruler, they could not 
bear that any one man should take to himself a power which 
the laws of Rome did not give him. So they plotted together, 
and one day they slew Caesar in the Senate-House. Then there 
were other civil wars for several years, till at last Caesar's grand- 
nephew, Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus, made himself even 
more fully master of Rome than his uncle had been before him. 
But even he was afraid to call himself King ; so he was called 
Imperator or Emperor, Prince, and Augustus. He was the first 
of the Roman Emperors, and is generally known in history as 
the Emperor Augustus Caesar. But all the Emperors after him 
were also called Augustus and Caesar, even though they were 
of no kin at all to the first Caesar the Dictator. 

It was in the reign of Augustus that our Lord Jesus Christ 
was born ; we now, therefore, reckon the years after Christ 
instead of before, and we say that Augustus died Anno Do77iini — 
that is, in the year of our Lord — 14. Augustus several times 
spoke of conquering Britain ; but he never did it, and he never 
really tried to do it. His successor Tiberius said that the Empire 
was large enough already. It was the third Emperor Caius 
(who is sometimes called Caligula) who first professed to go and 
conquer the island of which men had heard so much; but 
Caius was a very foolish and bad prince, or rather, to speak the 
truth, he was doAvnright mad. He did all sorts of silly things ; 



HOW BRITAIN WAS CONQUERED BY THE ROMANS, 15 

he gave himself out for a god, and appointed priests to worship 
him— one of the priests being himself, and another his favourite 
horse. He was so fond of this horse that he was going to make 
him Consul or chief magistrate of Rome, when happily the 
horse died. You may suppose that such a man was not likely 
to conquer Britain or to do any other great thing. All that he 
did was to take an army to the coast of Gaul, near where the 
town of Boulogne is now. There he set sail in a ship, but at 
once came back again. The story says that he gave out that 
he had conquered the Ocean, and ordered his soldiers to fill 
their helmets with shells and to take them home by way of 
plunder. This was in the year a.d. 40, ninety-five years after 
the great Caesar had first come over to Britain. 

It was the fourth Emperor Claudius in whose time any part 
of Britain was first really conquered. Claudius himself came 
over in the year a.d. 43, and after him his generals, Plautius 
and Ostorius, went on with the war. There were then many 
tribes in Britain under difterent chiefs, and sometimes some sub- 
mitted while others still held out. The British chief who held 
out the longest and the most bravely was Caradoc, whom the 
Romans called Caractacus. He was King of the Silurians, who 
lived in South Wales and the neighbouring parts. Caradoc and 
his people resisted bravely for several years, but at last he was 
defeated in a great battle, and he and his family were taken 
prisoners and led to Rome. When Caradoc saw that great and 
splendid city, he wondered that men who had such wealth and 
grandeur at home should come and meddle with him in his 
poor cottage in Britain. He was taken before the Emperor, who 
received him kindly and gave him his liberty, and, according 
to some writers, allowed him still to reign in part of Britain as 
a prince subject to Rome. The Romans had very often before 
this put captive Kings and generals to death, so that Claudius' 
kind treatment of Caradoc was really much to his honour. 

The whole of Britain was never conquered by the Romans, 
and it was not till after more than twenty years more of fighting 
that they got full possession of w^hat was afterwards the Roman 
Province. But perhaps this ahapter is already long enough ; 
so, as the submission of Caradoc makes a good break in the 
story, I will keep the rest for another chapter. 



CHAPTER HI. 

HOW BRITAIN WAS A ROMAN PROVINCE. 

After the time of Caradoc the war between the Romans and 
the Britons went on. Many parts of the island were still not 
conquered, and in those that were conquered, the ill-treatment 
of the Romans sometimes made the people revolt ; that is, 
they took up arms to try and drive the Romans out of the 
country. In particular there was one Boadicea, the widow of 
a King of the Icenians, who lived in what is now Norfolk and 
Suffolk, who made a great revolt against the Romans in the year 
6 1, in the reign of the wicked Emperor Nero. The Roman 
governor Suetonius was then at the other side of the island, 
fighting in Mona or Anglesey. Boadicea and her people were 
thus able to defeat the Romans for a while, and to destroy 
several of the towns where they lived. Among these was London, 
which was already a place of much trade ; others were Verulam, 
near Saint Albans, and Camelodunum, now called Colchester. 
You will understand that the Romans lived chiefly in towns, 
while the Britons, like all wild people, kept to the open country. 
So to attack and destroy the towns was to do the Romans the 
greatest harm that they could. -Boadicea was a brave woman ; 
she stood with a spear in her hand and a gold collar round her 
neck, and with her long hair streaming down, telling her people 
to fight well and to avenge all that they had suffered at the 
hands of the Romans. But though they were successful for a 
while, they could not stand long against the Roman soldiers, who 
knew how to fight so much better than they. When Suetonius 
came back there was a great battle near London ; the Britons 
were quite defeated, Boadicea killed herself, and so the war in 
that part of the island came to an end. 



HOW BRITAIN WAS A ROMAN PROVINCE. 17 

The man who at last really conquered Britain Avas Julius 
Agricola, who was the Roman commander here from 78 to 84. 
He was a good man as well as a brave soldier, and he did all 
he could to civilize the people as well as to conquer them. He 
got further to the north than any Roman had done before him, 
and wx may say that the Roman dominions now reached up to • 
the line between the Firths of Forth and Clyde in Scotland. If 
you look at your map, you will see that that is one of the 
points where the Isle of Britain is narrowest, much narrower 
than it is in any part of England, and narrov/er than most parts 
of Scotland. Along this line Agricola built a chain of forts, 
that is, a number of small castles, to defend the Roman Pro\ince 
against the wild people in the north of Britain, who were 
never fully conquered. Agricola made several campaigns further 
into Caledonia, as Scotland was then called, and he sailed 
round the north of the island and found out the Orkneys, 
which before were hardly known. But the part of Britain 
north of Agricola's forts was never really conquered ; there was 
always fighting along the border, and the barbarians sometimes 
got further south into the Province itself 

Thus all Britain, except the northern part of Scotland, w^as 
conquered by the Romans, and it remained a Roman Province 
for more than three hundred years. The land was now ruled 
by Roman governors ; sometimes the Roman Emperors them- 
selves came over into Britain, and sometimes Emperors were 
chosen by the soldiers in Britain. The Britons soon found that 
it w^as better to submit quietly than to try to get rid of a yoke 
which they could not really cast off. So w^e may say that 
the whole country became Roman. Many Romans doubtless 
came to live in Britain, and many of the Britons tried to make 
themselves as much as they could like Romans. They learned 
to speak Latin, and to dress and live in the same way that the 
Romans did. Towns w^ere built all over the country, and roads 
were made from one town to another ; for the Romans were 
among the best builders and the best road-miakers that ever were 
in the world. Many remains of Roman walls and other buildings 
are still found, sometimes in towns which are still inhabited, and 
sometimes in places which are now deserted. Thus there are 
pieces of Roman work at Caerleon, Caerwent, Leicester, Lin- 

c 



i8 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

coin, and many other towns, and also at places which are now 
forsaken, like Pevensey in Sussex and Burgh Castle in Suffolk. 
The Romans could not build such beautiful buildings either as 
the Greeks built before them or as Englishmen and Frenchmen 
have built since, but for building things which would last no 
people ever did better. A Roman wall is generally built of 
rows of small square stones, bonded together with courses of 
long thin bricks ; the arches are round, sometimes made of 
the same sort of bricks, sometimes of larger stones j so it is 
easy to know them. 

The Romans, and the Britons who had made themselves 
Romans, must have pretty well occupied the whole land, as we 
not only find remains of towns in all parts of the country, but 
also of villas or country seats. You know that now in 
England the noblemen and chief gentlemen do not live in 
towns. Most of them spend part of the year in London, but 
their homes are at their houses in the country. You know 
that the counties have their own magistrates and everything 
quite distinct from the towns, or, where it is not so, the people 
of the towns are under the magistrates of the county. Biit in 
the Roman times it was quite different. The towns were then 
almost everything. The men whom we should now call noble- 
men or rich gentlemen, though they had houses in the country 
where they spent part of their time, were citizens of some 
town, and filled offices there. A Roman town had a good 
deal of freedom in its own . private affairs, but there was no 
freedom over the whole land. The Emperors did as they pleased 
throughout the Empire, and the governors whom they sent did 
much as they pleased in their several provinces. There were 
heavy taxes to pay, and much oppression in many ways. Still 
it always happens that a barbarous people gains something by 
being conquered by a more civilized people ; Britain and the 
other provinces learned much from the Romans which they 
did not know before ; commerce, agriculture, and all the arts 
improved ; in short, they became civihzed people instead of 
barbarians. Still, though the Britons to so great a degree 
became Romans, the old British or Welsh tongue could not 
have been forgotten. If it had been forgotten, Welsh could not 
be anywhere spoken now. I think that most likely things were 



HOW BRITAIA WAS A ROMAN PROVINCE, 19 

then much the same in all Britain as they are in Wales now. 
In Wales, as you know, EngHsh is the language of the towns, 
and in the large towns most people cannot speak Welsh at all. 
And a Welsh gentleman can very seldom speak Welsh, unless 
he has learned it, as he may have learned French or German. 
But you know that - the country people commonly speak 
Welsh, and that some of them cannot speak any English. So 
I fancy that, in these times that we are now talking about, 
men spoke Latin in the towns, and also that those whom 
we may call the gentry spoke Latin, but that the country 
people still spoke Welsh. Welsh then must have gone on 
being spoken, but most likely hardly anything was \\Titten in it. 
There are a great many old stones still standing in Britain 
with Latin writing upon them, but I do not think that there 
are any with Welsh wTiting till long afterwards. 

I told you that the time that Britain remained a Roman 
Province was between three and four hundred years. That is 
a long time in the history of any people, and you may expect 
that in the course of so long a time many things must have 
happened for me to tell you about. And you will find, as we 
go on further in our history, that in the course of another 
four hundred years very many things happened which I wish you 
to remember. But in this particular four hundred years very 
few things happened which I need tell you. And the reason 
is because Britain was not free ; it was only a province of 
Rome. I need not tell you the names of all the Roman 
Emperors one after another, for that is rather part of the 
history of Rome than of the history of Britain. And though 
it sometimes happened that there was a separate Emperor 
reigning in Britain, that does not show that Britain was really 
independent of Rome. It only meant that the governor of 
Britain had rebelled, and would have liked to be Emperor of 
the whole Emxpire, if he could, but that he had been able as yet 
only to get hold of a part. Many such rebellions happened 
both in Britain and in other provinces. Sometimes the 
governor who rebelled was conquered, and then he was said 
to have been a Tyrant ; but sometimes he was able to over- 
come the reigning Emperor and reign in his stead, and then 
he was called Imperator, C^sar, and Augustus. But all the 

c 2 



20 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

time that the Romans were here, there was not any real struggle 
of the Britons themselves to get back their freedom, except so 
far as there was always fighting going on along the Northern 
border. In the year 120 the reigning Emperor Hadrian, who 
was very fond of travelling about through all parts of his 
dominions, came also to visit Britain. The next year he had 
a wall, by which is meant only a strong dyke or earthwork, ^ built 
from the Tyne to the Sol way Firth, between the towns of Car- 
lisle and Newcastle, to keep out the Barbarians. This, you will 
see, is a long way south of the line of Agricola ; and to build 
the wall there w^as much the same as giving up all the country 
beyond it. But, not very long after, in 139, when Antoninus 
Pius was Emperor, another wall or strong dyke was made 
along the line of Agricola's forts. But the northern tribes 
often passed this boundary, and, between 207 and 210, the 
Emperor Severus came himself to Britain, and built a wall of 
stone along the line of Hadrian's wall. Severus died next 
year at York, which was then called Eboracum. Yet, long 
after, in 368, in the reign of Valentinian, the Roman governor 
Theodosius (father of the famous Emperor Theodosius) again 
conquered the country between the two walls. But, by that 
time, the power of the Romans was very much weakened, and 
they were not likely to keep their new province or anything 
else much longer. 

You should remember the two walls, the wall of Hadrian or 
of Severus, and the wall of Antoninus, as they were some of 
the greatest of the Roman works in the island. Of the wall of 
Severus, parts are standing still, and it was very much more per- 
fect till the last century, when a great deal was pulled down to 
mend the roads. 

Now all the time which I have been talking about in this 
chapter w^as since the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, and 
during all this time the Christian religion was making its way 
in the world. It is not really known who first preached the 
Gospel in Britain. But there is no doubt that there were 
Christians in Britain in very early times as well as in other 
parts of the Empire. And we may be sure that some of them 

1 The word wall does not always mean that it is of stone or brick, as we 
talk of a sea-zuall, which is only a dyke. 



HOW BRITAIN WAS A ROMAN PROVINCE. 21 

were put to death for their rehgion here as well as in other 
places. The first martyr in Britain is said to have been Saint 
Alban, who was put to death at Verulam in 304, in the reign 
of Diocletian. A famous abbey was afterwards built there in 
his memxOry, and a tow^n arose round it which still bears his 
name. Old Verulam, which stood a little way off, was forsaken, 
and the church and town of Saint Albans were built with its 
bricks. 

The first Emperor who became a Christian was Constantine. 
He is said to have been born in Britain, and his mother 
Helen to have been a Briton. It is certain that it w^as in 
Britain that he was proclaimed Emperor in 306, on the death 
of his father Constantius. After his time, all the Emperors 
were Christians, except Julian, who became a heathen again. 
He is therefore often called Julian the Apostate, that is, one 
who falls away or forsakes his religion. But Julian was never- 
theless in many things a good man and a good Emperor, 
very much better than many of those who called themselves 
Christians. When the Em.perors became Christians, other 
people gradually followed their example, and the whole Empire 
was converted. Churches were built and Bishopricks founded. 
There are said to have been three Archbishopricks in Britain, 
at London, York, and Caerleon, those being then the three 
chief cities of the island. But very little is known for certain 
about the old British Church, and it does not really matter 
very much to us Englishmen. How our own forefathers 
became Christians I shall tell you another time. 

If v\x reckon from the first coming over of Claudius, we 
may say that Britain was a Roman Province from 43 to 410; 
that is, 367 years. How the Roman power came to an end in 
the island I vriil tell you in my next chapter. 



CHAPTER IV. 

HOW BRITAIN BECAME ENGLAND. 

After Britain had been a Roman Province for about three 
hundred and fifty years, the Roman power began to get very 
much weaker. New nations began to be heard of, and they were 
often very troublesome to the Empire in different places. The 
Teutonic nations, that is, as I before told you, the race of men 
to which we ourselves belong, still for the most part remained 
free. The Romans could never conquer more than a small 
part of Germany ; they could keep hardly any of the country 
either east of the Rhine or north of the Danube. They tried 
indeed very hard in the time of Augustus, and invaded Ger- 
many many times. But our kinsfolk always resisted them very 
bravely. There was especially one famous German chief, 
Irmin or Arminius, who destroyed a whole Roman army, and 
was called the deliverer of Germany. 

Now I have told you about Caradoc and Boadicea, and it 
is right that you should know about them and care for them. 
But you should care for Arminius a great deal more, for though 
he did not live in our land, he was our own kinsman, our bone 
and our flesh. If he had not hindered the Romans from 
conquering Germany, we should not now be talking English : 
perhaps we should not be a nation at all. Happily the 
Romans never conquered Germany; and as for our other 
kinsfplk in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, the Romans never 
even tried to conquer them — they hardly knew that there 
were such countries. So a large part of Europe was still 
quite free, though its people were still very wild and ignorant, 
what is called uncivilized. But we should always think with 
reverence of our own fathers and kinsfolk, and think w^hat 



HOW BRITAIN BECAME ENGLAND, 23 

great nations have grown out of the people who were then 
looked down upon as Barbai^ians. For the Greeks, and after 
them the Romans, called all people who could not speak their 
tongue Barbarians^ just as our forefathers called those who 
could not speak their tongue Welsh, There was a time when 
the Greeks called the Romans themselves Barbariaiis^ and 
after that there was a time when the Romans called Gauls 
and Spaniards Barbarians. But, now that all people within 
the Roman Empire were reckoned to be Romans, Bar- 
barian meant those nations who lived beyond the bounds 
of the Empire, and who did not speak either Greek or 
Latin. Most of the Barbarians whom we now hear of were 
Teutons, though, of course, in Ireland and Scotland the 
Barbarians were Celts. Now, towards the end of the 
fourth century after Christ, there was no longer any fear of 
the Romans conquering the Germans ; but, instead of that, 
the Teutonic nations began to press into the Roman Empire. 
Our kinsfolk were now something like what the Romans them- 
selves had been ages before. They were strong and brave 
and hardy, and had many virtues which the Romans had lost. 
There was always more or less fighting going on along the 
borders of the Empire, and the Barbarians themselves often 
served in the Roman armies. Of course, as the Roman power 
grew weaker, and as good soldiers were less and less to be 
found within the Empire, the Roman armies became more 
and more filled with Barbarians who served as what are called 
inercefiaries. By mercenaries I mean soldiers who are not 
fighting for their own country, but who are ready to serve any 
king or commonwealth that will take them into pay. But 
when any nation learns to trust chiefly to mercenaries, you 
may be sure that that nation will not long remain free. So it 
was w^ith the great Roman Empire. The Teutons, by some- 
times fighting against the Romans and sometimes serving with 
the Romans, gradually came to be better soldiers than the 
Romans themselves, and they at last learned to conquer those 
who had once conquered them. Various Teutonic chiefs with 
their followers pressed into the Em.pire, and though for some 
while they professed some sort of obedience to the Roman 
Emperors, they soon grew into independent kingdoms. Thus 



24 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

the Franks pressed into Northern Gaul, and from them part of 
Germany and part of Gaul came to be called Francia or the 
land of the Franks ; the name still remains in Fraiiken or 
F?^anco7iia^ and also in Fi'ance, The Burgundians settled in 
the south-east part of Gaul, the part nearest to Italy, which was 
for a long time after called the Kingdom of Burgundy. The 
West-Goths, after w^andering about the Empire for some time, 
at last, under their King Alaric, took Rome in 410, but they did 
not stay in Italy, and in the end they founded a great kingdom, 
partly in Spain, partly in Aquitaine or Southern Gaul. The 
Vandals first settled in Spain, and then crossed over into 
Africa, and there founded a kingdom whose capital was the 
famous city of Carthage. At last, in 476, an end was put for a 
while to the succession of Roman Emperors in Italy. The Em- 
perors still reigned in the East at Constantinople, but, first Odo- 
acer. King of the Heruli, and then the great Theodoric, King 
of the East-Goths, reigned in Italy. They professed to be sub- 
jects of the Empire, generals serving under the Emperor's autho- 
rity, and they went on appointing a Roman Consul every year ; 
but they really were independent Kings. Thus Rome itself was 
for a while cut off from the Roman Empire ; I say for a while, 
because in the sixth century both Italy and Africa were 
recovered for a time by the Eastern Emperors. Thus the 
Roman Empire went on in the East, where the Teutonic 
nations did not settle, till its last fragments were destroyed by 
the Turks, who took Constantinople in 1453. And during 
all that time the people of the Eastern Empire, though they 
spoke Greek and not Latin, still called themselves Romans, 
and in many parts the Christian people who are now in bond- 
age to the Turks call themselves Romans still. 

Thus the Empire went on in the East, the people calling 
themselves Romans, but being really not so much Romans as 
Greeks. Meanw^iile in the West the Teutonic nations settled. 
Now in the Southern countries, in Italy, Spain, and Aquitaine, 
the Goths and other Teutonic people gradually mixed with 
the Romans. They became Christians — indeed most of them 
were Christians before they settled within the Empire — and 
they gradually learned to speak Latin. Of course the Latin 
language became corrupted and mixed up with other tongues 



HO W BRITAIN BECAME EKGLAXD. 25 

and thus arose the languages of Southern Europe, Italian, Pro- 
vencal,^ Spanish, and French. These are called the Roina?ice\2Ci\- 
guages, because they are all derived from Latin, the language of 
Rome. But the French tongue came up much later than any of 
the others, because those of the Franks who settled in Northern 
Gaul, though they became Christians, did not mix so much mth 
the Romans as the Goths and Burgundians did, but remained 
a purely German people for a very long time. 

Now while the other Teutonic nations were conquering 
other parts of the Roman Empire, the greater part of Britain 
was also conquered by our own forefathers, the Angles and 
Saxons. But it was conquered in a very different way from the 
rest of the Empire. One difference, I think, must strike you 
at once, almost without my telling you. You know that we 
still speak, not a Romance, but a Teutonic tongue. A great 
many French and Latin words are mixed up with our real Old- 
English, but these words came in at a much later time ; they are 
mere strangers, many of which we could do just as well ^\ith- 
out. Some of you are learning French, and some day most 
likely you ^^ill learn German. You know that many words are 
the same in English and French, but those words are not the 
commonest words which we are speaking every moment. But 
when you come to learn German, you will find that those 
words which are the true life of a tongue, those without which 
we could not get on at all, are the same in German and in Eng- 
lish, and are quite unlike French. You can make many sentences 
together about common things which shall not have one French 
or Latin word in them ; but you cannot make the shortest Eng- 
lish sentence out of French or Latin words only, without using 
Teutonic words. So you see that, though English as we now 
speak it has many more foreign words in it than German, or 
Dutch, or Danish has, yet it still is a Teutonic tongue after all. 

The reason of this is that our forefathers, when they settled 
in Britain, did not learn to speak Latin like the Goths 

1 That is the language of Southern Gaul, called from Provincia or 
Provence^ that part of (laul which first became a Roman Province, and 
which has kept the name ever since. The Provengal language is as different 
from French as Italian or Spanish is, and it must not be thought to be 
'' bad French," as ignorant people often call it. 



26 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN, 

and Burgundians, but kept on speaking their own language. 
And they not only kept to their own language, but they 
also kept to their own religion. The Goths, Vandals, 
Burgundians, and Franks soon became Christians, but the 
English went on worshipping their old false gods, Woden and 
Thunder and the rest, for at least a hundred and fifty years 
after they settled in Britain. And if you look at a map you 
will easily see that in Italy, Spain, and Gaul, most places keep 
their old names. The towns and other places either have 
Latin names, or else they keep the old names of all that 
they had before the Romans came. But in England, nearly 
all the names are either English or Danish. That is, they 
are nearly all Teutonic of some kind ; the only names 
that are Latin or Welsh are the names of most of the 
rivers, of some of the hills, and of some of the oldest and 
greatest towns, like London, Gloucester, and Lincoln. In this 
Western part of England where we live, there are indeed a good 
many Welsh names ; but this is for a reason which I will tell 
you presently. But if you go into the Eastern and Midland 
counties, you will hardly find one Welsh name, except here and 
there the name of a river or a great town. 

Now all this shows that the English conquest of Britain was 
quite another kind of thing from the Gothic conquest of Spain, 
or even from the Frankish conquest of Northern Gaul. The 
French are mainly Celts to this day, and to this day, as I said, 
they speak what we may call a kind of Latin. But we are not 
Welshmen but Englishmen, and we do not speak Latin but 
English. Now the reason of this is that our forefathers, the 
Angles and Saxons, were very much more savage and ignorant 
than the other Teutonic nations who settled within the Empire. 
Our old country at the mouth of the Elbe was a land which 
the Romans had hardly reached at all. Our fathers had not, 
therefore, like the Goths, become partly civilized by constant 
intercourse with the Romans, by either fighting against them or 
fighting for them. For the same reason our fathers were still 
heathens, for they had had no opportunity of hearing of the 
Christian religion from any of the Roman clergy. Therefore 
the Angles and Saxons made war in a much more savage way 
than the Goths did. The Goths, and most of the other Teutonic 



HGW BRITAIN BECAME ENGIAND, 27 

nations, thought it enough to conquer, but they did not 
destroy. As I told you, they often professed for a while to be 
subjects of the Roman Emperors. At any rate they neither 
killed all the Roman inhabitants, nor yet destroyed their 
towns. They made their own Kings rulers of the land, and 
they made themselves the chief men in it, and they seized on a 
large part of the land to maintain the King and his followers. 
But they generally left the Romans to live in their old way, 
and to be governed by their own laws. They generally ad- 
mired the fine buildings which the Romans had made, and 
they preserved and imitated them as well as they could. And, 
as they were Christians, they respected the churches and 
clergy; and the clergy, who for a long time were mostly 
Romans, retained great power and large estates. Thus you 
see how the two nations gradually mixed together, and how 
it came to pass that in all the South of Europe the] language 
and nearly everything else is still very much more Roman 
than Teutonic. 

But the Romans in Britain and the Welsh, who, as we 
may say, had turned Romans, did not fare nearly so well at 
the hands of our own forefathers. The Angles and Saxons knew 
nothing and cared nothing about either the Christian religion 
or the arts and manners of Rome. They destroyed nearly 
everything which those Teutons who conquered the South of 
Europe took care to preserve. At first they seem to have 
destroyed all the towns which they took ; but some of the 
great cities they seem not to have taken for a good while, till 
our fathers had become somewhat more civilized. And, 
instead of either mixing with the people, or else leaving them 
their own laws and part of their lands, they always either 
killed or made slaves of all the people that they could. Those 
who could get away no doubt escaped into Wales and Corn- 
wall and the other parts of the island which the Angles and 
Saxons did not yet get into. Of the others you may suppose 
that those who fought against our forefathers were killed, and 
those who submitted were made slaves. The women of course 
would be made slaves, or they would sometimes be married to 
their masters. Thus there may doubtless be some little British 
and Roman blood in us, just as some few Welsh and Latin words 



28 OLD ENGLISH HLSTOR V FOR CHILDREN. 

crept into the English tongue from the very beginning. But we 
maybe sure that we have not much of their blood in us, because 
w^e have so few of their words in our language. The few that 
there are are mainly the sort of words which the women, whether 
wives or slaves, would bring in, that is, names of things in 
household use, such as basket^ vv^hich is one of the few Welsh 
words in English. Thus you see that our forefathers really 
became the people of the land in all that part of Britain which 
they conquered. For they had killed or driven out all the former 
people, save those whom they kept as mere slaves. Thus they 
kept their own language, their own manners, and their own 
religion. All this is very different from the conquests of the 
other Teutons in the South of Europe. There the Goths and 
the other nations did not really become the people of the land ; 
they either were rulers over the former people, or else they 
w^ere altogether mixed up with them; and everywhere tli^y 
became Christians, and learned to speak such Latin as was 
spoken then. 

Now you will perhaps say that our forefathers were cruel and 
vvicked men thus to come into the land of another people, and 
to take the land to themselves and to kill or make slaves of the 
men to whom it belonged. And so doubtless it was. But you 
must remember that we were then both a heathen and a bar- 
barous people, and that it is not fair to judge our fathers by the 
same rules as if they had been either Christians or civiHzed men. 
And I am afraid that men who called themselves both Christian 
and civilized have, even in quite late times, treated the people 
of distant countries quite as badly as ever our forefathers treated 
the Welsh. But anyhow it has turned out much better in 
the end that our forefathers did thus kill or drive out nearly all 
the people whom they found in the land. The English w^ere 
thus able to grow up as a nation in Englaiid, and their laws, 
manners, and language grew up with them, and Avere not copied 
from those of other nations. We have indeed taken much 
from other nations in later times ; but then what we have 
taken we have always made our own, just as we have done 
with the foreign words which we have taken into our language. 
Had our forefathers done as the other Teutonic people did, 
though we might have known many things much earlier than 



HO W BRITAIN BECAME EXGIAND. 29 

we did, yet I cannot think that we should ever have been so 
gi-eat and free a people as we have been for many ages. 

I have thus taken some pains to make you understand what 
sort of a conquest it was w^ich our forefathers made in the Isle 
of Britain, and how unlike it was to the conquests which were 
made about the same time by our kinsfolk in other parts of the 
Roman Empire. I daresay this has been harder to under- 
stand than some other things which I have had to tell 
you ; but it is well that you should know from the very 
beginning how it came to pass that we are Englishmen and 
speak English, while in the other countries of Western Europe 
they still speak languages which are so like Latin. And 
now you will ask me to tell you something about the men 
who were foremost in conquering Britain, and about the 
time when it happened. And very likely you may expect 
to hear some pleasant stories about it. I will tell you what I 
can, but I am sorry to say that it will be very little that I can 
tell you. For these are times of which we have hardly any 
history written at the time, so that we know very little of the 
deeds of this or that man; though wx can make out a great 
deal from language and other things which are not written in 
books. When the first Teutons came into Britain it is not 
easy to say. Some people think that there were Teutonic 
people in the land even before Caesar came, and that Queen 
Boadicea and her people were really of our own blood. But 
I do not myself beheve this, and even if it were so, one 
can hardly fancy that, after being so Tong under the Roman 
power, the Teutons in Britain would be very different from the 
other people of the island. But towards the end of the 
fourth century, we first begin to hear something for certain 
about our own people. The Roman power in Britain was now 
getting weaker ; the Romans had much ado to keep their 
province safe from the Picts and Scots in the north of the 
island, and the coasts now began to be ravaged by the fleets of 
the Saxons. Thus it is then, towards the end of the fourth 
century, that we first hear of our o\\m forefathers trying to settle 
in Britain. It is very likely that the Angles and Saxons might 
have conquered Britain then, only in 367 there came into 
Britain a Roman governor named Theodosius (whom 1 have 



30 OLD ENGLISH HIS TOR V FOR CHILDREN. 

already spoken of), who was a wise and brave man, and who beat 
both the Scots and the Saxons, and won back the land for 
Rome as far as the wall of Agricola. This was, for the time, 
a great check to the Teutons who were trying to get into the 
island ; but this revival or springing up again of the Roman 
power could not really last. In 400 the Romans had fallen 
back to the wall of Severus, which was then repaired. Ten 
years later everything in Italy was in confusion, and Rome 
itself was sacked by the Goths. Then the Emperor 
Honorius, the son of the Emperor Theodosius, and grandson 
of the Theodosius who had been in Britain, recalled the 
Roman legions from Britain, and left the people of the land 
to shift for themselves. It was now much more easy for the 
Angles and Saxons to come into Britain. They could now come, 
not merely to plunder and go away, but to settle and live in the 
land. Sometimes, it is said, the Britons were foolish enough to 
ask the Angles and Saxons to help them against the Picts and 
Scots who kept pouring in from the north. I need not tell 
you that, when our fathers were once asked to come into the 
land, they took care to stay there. However this may be, it is 
certain that, in the course of something more than a hundred 
years, in the fifth and sixth centuries, the Teutons from beyond 
the sea conquered much the greater part of Britain. At the 
end of the sixth century the Picts and Scots remained north of 
the Forth, and the Welsh in the west of the island, that is, not 
only in what is now Wales, but in all the land west of the 
Severn, and again in Cumberland and the neighbouring parts, 
and in Cornwall, Devonshire, and part of Somerset. But all 
the rest of the land was in the hands of our own forefathers. 

We may be sure that a great many different Teutonic tribes 
had a share in this great movement across the seas. But they 
seem to have all been nearly akin to each other, and to have 
spoken much the same language. Three tribes especially are 
spoken of above all others, the Angles, the Saxons, and the 
Jutes ; and of these it was that the land was mainly over- 
spread. Of these three, the Saxons are those of whom we 
hear first ; and this is most likely the reason why the Celtic 
people in Scotland, Wales, and Ireland call all Englishmen 
Saxo72s to this day. But the Angles took a greater part of the 



HO W BRITAIN BECAME ENGLAND, 31 

land than any of the others, so that it was they who, in the end, 
gave their name to the land and its people. As the Teutons in 
Britain began to grow together into one people, they were 
sometimes called the Aiiglo-Saxons — that is, the people made 
up of the Angles and Saxons — but more commonly they were 
called Angles or English alone. And w^hen so much of Britain 
as the Teutons lived in came to have a common name, that 
name was Englaland, or England, that is, the land of the 
Angles, or English. Saxon by itself always meant the people 
of those parts only where the Saxons settled, and the whole 
people was never called so except by the Celts. 

Thus it was that our fathers came into the land where w^e 
now dwell ; and, like the men whom we read of in old times, 
they called the land after their own name. Of the different 
Kmgdoms which they founded in Britain, the Kingdoms 
of the Angles, Saxons,, and Jutes, I will tell you in my next 
chapter. 



CHAPTER V. 

KOW THE ENGLISH KINGDOMS IN BRITAIN WERE FOUNDED. 

I HAVE told you that, among the Teutonic people who settled 
in Britain, the chief tribes were the Angles, the Saxons, knd the^ 
Jutes. I have told you also that the Saxons were those who 
first began to trouble the British coasts before the Romans went 
away, which is most likely the reason why the Celts still call us 
all Saxons. But the Angles were those who took tq themselves 
the greater part of the land, and who at last gave it their name, 
so that we have always called ourselves English and our land 
England. But, if our old traditions are at all true, the people 
who founded the first lasting Teutonic kingdom in Britain were 
neither the Angles nor the Saxons, but the Jutes, We cannot 
say much for certain about the English Conquest, because no 
account of it could well be written at the time, and the oldest 
accounts that we have were certainly not written till two or 
three hundred years after. But we can hardly think that the 
people in the different parts of England could have been quite 
wrong as, to v\^hence their forefathers came, and they may very 
well have remembered the names of the Kings and chief men 
who led them. So I do not at all mind telhng you the story of 
the Conquest of Britain by our forefathers as it is told in the 
oldest books we have ; for I see no reason to doubt that it is 
true in the main, though you should still remember that we 
cannot be so certain about it as about things which were written 
down at the time. 

Our old Chronicle then, the oldest English history, the book 
which you should learn to reverence next after your Bibles and 
Homer, tells us that the first Teutonic kingdom in Britain began 
in the year 449. This was the Kingdom of Kent. It was 



FOUNDATION OF THE ENGLISH KINGDOMS. 33 

natural that Kent should be the first part of Britam to be 
conquered, because it is the nearest to the mainland of Europe. 
So the EngHsh Conquest began in Kent, just as the Roman 
Conquest had done. And you should mark that Kent is one 
of those parts of Britain which still keep their old British names ; 
it is indeed the only part in the east of Britain which has done 
so. Both the old kingdoms and the later shires in the east of 
England have English names, all except Kent, which has never 
changed. The land was still called Kent, and the English who 
settled there called themselves Kentishmen. The Kingdom of 
Kent was a kingdom of the Jutes. The Jutes were the tribe 
who took to themselves a smaller part of Britain than any other, 
only Kent and the Isle of Wight and part of what is now 
Hampshire ; but their settlement is very important, for they were 
the first Teutons who really fixed themselves in the land. The 
names of their leaders when they came into Britain were Hengest 
and Horsa. These names mean horse and mare.^ and some 
people have thought that it is not likely that any men should 
be called by such names, and they have said that all that the 
story means is that the Jutes had a horse for the badge on their 
standard. It is very true that the horse is the badge of Kent, 
as you may see to this day on any sack of Kentish hops ; but I 
do not see why men should not be called Hengest and Horsa 
as much as Wolf, Lion, and Bear, or Bull and Lamb and Stag, 
as many men ha,ve been called in all times. They may even 
have taken the horse for their badge because of their own 
names. However, this is one of the things of which we cannot 
be certain ; but whether Hengest and Horsa vv^ere real men 
or not, we need not doubt that the Jutes settled in Kent some 
time in the fifth century, w^hich is the chief thing to know. 
The Welsh King whom they found in the laaid was called 
Vortigern, and he is said to have asked them to come and 
help him against the Picts. Later writers tell a story how 
Vortigern fell in love with Hengest's daughter and married 
her, and some go on to say that her name was Rowena. 
But I find nothing about this in the old books, and no 
Englishwoman was ever called by such a name as Rowena 
at all. You will see that I say an Englishwoman, and I do so 
because, though the Chronicle tells us that the people of Kent 

D 



34 OLD ENGLISH HIS TOR V FOR CHILDREN, 

were really Jutes, yet it calls them Angles or English from the 
very beginning. The English fought many battles with the 
Welsh in Kent, in one of which Horsa is said to have been 
killed. At last they founded two little kingdoms, East Kent 
and West Kent. Of these two East Kent was doubtless always 
the greater, and in it was the chief city, which was called in Old- 
English Cant-wara-byrig^ that is, Kentmensborotigh ; we now call 
it, making the name a little shorter, Canterbury. 

The next people who came were Saxons, who landed on the 
south coast under JElle and his son Cissa in 477. They 
landed near the city which the Romans called Regnum, but 
which in English was called, from the name of Cissa, Cis- 
sanceaster^ the camp or city of Cissa, which we now cut short 
into Chichester. There was another Roman town in those 
parts called Anderida or in English Andredes-ceaster. It stood 
near where Pevensey now is, and the Roman walls are stand- 
ing to this day. This town JElle and Cissa took in 491. 
Our Chronicles tell us that they left not a Briton alive. And in 
the history of Henry of Huntingdon, who wrote m the twelfth 
century, there is a longer account of the siege, which seems to 
be made up from old ballads. You see it was easy for our 
fathers to lancj and settle in the open country, and to kill or 
drive away all the Welshmen, or here and there to make slaves 
of them j but it was a good many years before they could take 
a town with Roman walls. So there was a great deal of fighting 
before the English could take Anderida. Thus was founded 
the Kingdom of the South-Saxo?ts, which still keeps its name, 
and is called the county of Sussex. 

Thus you see that Kent and Sussex were the first English 
kingdoms founded ; but neither Kent nor Sussex were among 
the greatest of the kingdoms which our fathers founded in 
Britain. The third English settlement came to much greater 
things than either of those two. This was also a settlement of 
Saxons, who, as they fixed themselves to the west of the Saxons 
who had first come, were called the West- Saxons ^ or the Kingdom 
of Wessex. The name of Wessex is not now in use as that 
of Sussex is, because Sussex has only had one shire, namely 

^ Ceaster, a tower or fortified place, from the Latin castra^ one of the few 
Latin words which got into English from the very beginning. 



FOUNDATION OF THE ENGLISH KINGDOMS. 35 

Surrey, taken out of it, and the rest has kept its name, while 
the great Kingdom of Wessex took in at least seven shires. 
The West-Saxon Kingdom began, according to the Chronicle, 
in 495, in that part which is now called Hampshire. These 
Saxons came under two Ealdormen called Cerdic and Cynric 
his son. Perhaps you may be surprised at their title, as I dare 
say you have never heard the word Aldermaii used of any one 
but the magistrates of a town. But Ealdonnaii or Alderman^ 
that is of course simply Elderma7i^ used to be the highest title 
after King^ just as in other countries you find rulers called by 
other names which at first simply meant old nwi^ such as Signore 
or Seigneur (Senior), so in Latin Senator and in Greek yeptjy. 
And so Cerdic and Cynric were Aldermen of the West-Saxons ; 
but they seem afterwards to have called themselves Kings, as 
the Chronicle says that the West-Saxon Kingdom began in 519. 
You must take care to remember Cerdic and his West-Saxons, 
because it was the Kingdom of Wessex to w^hich all the other 
Kingdoms were joined one after another, till it became the King- 
dom of all England, and from Cerdic were descended nearly all^ 
the Kings that have reigned over all England. The Kings of the 
West-Saxons gradually conquered all the south-w^estern part of 
Britain, and their Kingdom also stretched beyond the Thames 
over Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire. But I will tell you 
more particularly what happened in our o^vn western part of 
England. It is said that there was a Welsh prince called Arthur 
in Somersetshire, who fought bravely against the English and 
sometimes beat them. This is that King Arthur of whom you 
may have heard, and of whom many strange stories are told. 
Very likely there w^as such a man, but we can tell nothing 
about him for certain. Some of the Welsh Kings are spoken 
of in our Chronicle, but there is nothing about Arthur, and the 
Welsh writers who speak of him did not w^ite till long after. 
It is said that he won a battle over the English at Badbury in 
Dorsetshire^ in 520, and that he w^as buried at Glastonbur}':. 
This is not unlikely, as there can be no doubt that Glaston- 

^ All, except Cnut the Dane and his sons, Harold son of Godwine, and 
William the Conqueror. William's sons were descended from Cerdic in a 
roundabout way through their mother. 

^ A/ons Badonicus^ not Bath, as used to be thought. 

D 2 



36 OLD ENGLISH HIS TOR V FOR CHILDREN. 

bury was a great church in the Welsh times before the Eng- 
lish came. And it is quite certain that the West-Saxon Kings 
did not conquer any part of Somersetshire till after the time 
when Arthur is said to have lived. The first of them who 
got so far west was Ceawlin, who began to reigri -"in 556. 
He fought with the Welsh along both the Thanaes and the 
Severn, and evei; got as far north as what is now Shropshire. 
In 577 he won a great battle against the Welsh at Deorham 
in Gloucestershire, and took the three great Roman towns of 
Bath, Gloucester, and Cirencester. You see that Bristol, which 
is now a greater town than any of those three, is not spoken 
of, because it was not a Roman town, and most likely was 
not a town at all in Ceawlin's time. But the others were 
Roman towns, as you may know by their ending in -ceaster, for 
Bath too is called Bathanceaster in the Chronicle. The name, 
some of you will see, is a translation of the Latin name Aqitce} 
Now it was that Ceawlin took the great stronghold on Worle- 
hill, and carried his frontier south as far as the Axe. So in 
those days Wookey^ was in England, and Wells — or at least 
Glastonbury, for Wells was most likely not built — was in Wales. 
You have heard me say that there is Eiiglish Combe near Bath, 
and you all know that there is Wallcomhe^ that is Weala-cwm, 
Welshmaii!s combe^ near Wells. These places show how the 
border ran. Thus it was that Somersetshire began to be English. 
The southern part of the county was not conquered till long 
after ; but all between the Avon and the Axe has been English 
ever since 577, nearly thirteen hundred years ago. This part 
of Somersetshir e always remained part of Wessex. But those 
who came after Ceawlin did not keep what he had conquered, 
and what the West-Saxon Kings before him had held either 
in Gloucestershire or in the other parts north of the Thames. 
Those parts afterwards belonged to the Anglian Kingdom of 

• 1 Other towns of the same name on the Continent keep the Latm name a 
little altered, as Dax (De Aqins) in Gascony, Aix in Provence, and Aachen 
in Germany, the city of the Great Charles, which Frenchmen call Aix-la- 
Chapelle. 

2 A village two miles from Wells, near the author's house, a ballad 
about which will be found in Percy's Reliques. On these local allusions 
see the remarks in the Preface. 



I^OUXDATIOX OF THE ENGLISH KINGDOMS, 37 

Mercia. But you should remember that the Saxons under 
Ceawlin were the first Teutons who came into those parts. 
And this explains two things. First, it is another reason why 
the people of Wales call all Englishmen Saxons, because 
Ceawlin's Saxons were the first Teutons w^ho came against 
them. Secondly, it explains why the speech of Gloucestershire 
and of several other shires \\ithin ?^Iercia is much more like the 
Saxon speech of Somersetshire than it is like the Anglian speech 
of the shires further north. This is because, though those 
shires were afterwards part of an Anglian Kingdom, yet those 
who first conquered them were Saxons. 

I have talked to you at greater length about the West- 
Saxons and Ceawlin for two reasons. First, because it was 
Ceawlin's Kingdom which gradually grew into the Kingdom 
of all England, and secondly because he did so much at places 
which you know, and because you have been born and lived 
in the part of England where he lived and fought. I must now 
go on with the other Kingdoms. But the Chronicle does not 
tell us so clearly about them as it does about Kent, Sussex, 
and Wessex, and we must put together our accounts how we 
can out of difterent writers who do not always tell the same 
story. The other Kingdoms are the one other Saxon King- 
dom, that of the East-Saxons or Essex, and the three Anglian 
Kingdoms of Northumherland, Mercia, and East - Anglia. 
These three, as you may see on the map, are altogether 
much larger than the Saxon and Jutish Kingdoms, so you 
see very well why the whole land was called England and 
not Saxony} But some say that there were either Jutes 
or Saxons in the North of England, as soon or sooner than 
there were in the south. If so, there is another reason why 
the Scotch Celts, as well as the Welsh, call us Saxons. It 
is not unlikely that there may have been some small Saxon 
or Jutish settlements there very early, but the great King- 
dom of Northumberland was certainly founded by Ida the 
Angle in 547. It is more likely that there were some Teutonic 
settlements there before him, because the Chronicle does not 
say of him, as it does of Hengest, Cissa, and Cerdic, that he 

^ Saxojiia does occur now and then, and it was really an older name than 
Aiilia, but it soon went quite out of use. 



38 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

came into the land by sea, but only that he began the King- 
dom. Most likely he began his Kingdom by joining several 
little districts, each of which had its own Alderman, into one. 
You must fully understand that in the old times Northum- 
berland meant the whole land north of the Humber, reach- 
ing as far as the Firth of Forth. It thus takes in part of 
w^iat is now Scotland, including the city of Edinburgh^ 
that is Eadtviiiesburh^ the tow^n of the great Northumbrian 
King Eadwine or Edwin, of whom you will hear more 
presently. You must not forget that Lothian and all that part 
of Scotland was part of Northumberland, and that the people 
there are really English, and still speak a tongue which has 
changed less from the Old-English than the tongue of any 
other part of England. And the real Scots, the Gael in the 
Highlands, call the Lowland Scots Saxo7is^ just as much as 
they do the people of England itself. This Northumbrian 
Kingdom was one of the greatest Kingdoms in England, but 
it was often divided into two, Beorjiicia and Deira^ the 
latter of which answered pretty nearly to Yorkshire. The 
chief city was the old Roman town of Eboraaim., which in 
Old-English is Eoforwic, and which we cut short into York. 
York w^as for a long time the greatest tow^n in the North of 
England. There are now many others much larger, but York 
is still the second city in England in rank, and it gives its 
chief magistrate the title oi Lord Mayor ^ as London does, while 
in other cities and towns the chief magistrate is merely the 
Mayor ^ without any Lord. 

There is not very much to say about the Kingdoms of the 
East-Saxons and the East-Angles, w^hich no doubt came up 
in the course of the sixth century. Their names speak for 
themselves. The East-Angles formed two divisions, the 
North-folk and the South-folk, whose names I think you will 
know as those of two counties. The East-Saxons had the old 
Roman town of Colchester, and one part of them, called the 
Middle- Saxons^ though a very small people, had a greater city 
still, for London was in their land. 

The great Anglian Kingdom of the Mercians^ that is the 
Marclunen, the people on the inarch or frontier, seems to have 
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FOUNDATION OF THE ENGLISH KINGDOMS. 39 

joining together several smaller states, including all the land 
which the West-Saxons had held north of the Thames. Such 
little tribes or states were the Lrndesfaj^as and the Gainas in 
Lincolnshire, the Alagescetas in Herefordshire, the Hwiccas in 
Gloucester, Worcester, and part of Warwick, and several others. 
Most likely each of these little peoples had its own King or 
Alderman, who was independent if he could, but was generally 
more or less under the power of the Mercian King. When 
Mercia was fully joined under one King, it made one of the 
greatest states in England, and some of the Mercian Kings 
were very powerful Princes. It was chiefly an Anghan King- 
dom, and the Kings were of an Anglian stock, but among the 
Hwiccas and in some of the other shires in southern and 
western Mercia, most of the people must really have been 
Saxons. 

Thus it was that, during the fifth and sixth centuries, the 
Angles, Saxons, and Jutes settled in Britain, and made all the 
east part of the island English, from the English Channel 
northwards to the Eirth of Forth. But in the more moun- 
tainous parts to the .west, the Welsh still kept their ground. 
At the end of the sixth century, besides what is now AVales, 
all the land west of the Severn was Welsh, and so was 
all south of the Axe, not only Cornwall, but Devonshire and 
most part of Somerset. And to the north there was also a 
Welsh Kingdom, called the Kingdom of Strath clyde, w^hich took 
in Galloway and the rest of the south-west part of Scotland, 
together with Cumberland, Westmorland, and Lancashire, all 
down to the river Dee and the city of Chester. So you see 
that a good deal of what we now call England was at the end 
of the sixth century still unconquered. And you must not 
think that all that was conquered was conquered at once : 
the Roman towns especially often held out for a long time, 
and the Welsh were often able to hold their ground here and 
there while the Enghsh were settled around them. The 
English conquered one little piece and then another little 
piece, fighting a battle and taking a little more of the Welsh 
country after it. But generally the two nations did not mix, and 
there seem to have been hardly any Welshmen left in the 
English part of the country except those who were slaves. 



40 OLD ENGLISH HIS TOR Y FOR CHILDREN. 

I have thus told you about the founding of the seven 
old English Kingdoms, as we find it told in our oldest books. 
These Kingdoms are sometimes called the Heptarchy, from 
the Greek words f Tr-a, seve?i, and dpx^, kingdom or governmeiit. 
But I do not think this a good name. For eVrapx^'a in Greek 
would not mean seven Kingdoms close together, but rather a 
single government in the hands of seven persons. And the 
name Heptarchy also gives the idea of a more regular state of 
things than there really was, as if there had ahvays been exactly 
seven Kingdoms, neither more nor fewer. But in truth, the 
different English peoples were always fighting with one another 
as well as with the Welsh, and sometimes one had the upper 
hand and sometimes the other, so that there were sometimes 
more than seven Kingdoms and sometimes fewer. And if we 
count small states with their King or Alderman tributary to 
a more powerful King, we might make up very many more 
than seven. Sometimes one King was so powerful as to get 
some sort of power over all the others ; when this happened, 
he was called a Bretwalda. We have a list of Bretwaldas in 
the Chronicle, but we do not know exactly in what the power 
of a Bretwalda beyond his own Kingdom really consisted. It 
is plain however that it was a power which depended wholly 
upon the Bretwalda himself being a wise man and a great 
warrior, as it seems never to have stayed in the same kingdom 
or to have been handed on from father to son. 

During all the time that I have been talking about, the 
English were still heathens. The Welsh do not seem to have 
ever tried to convert them, and, if they had tried, we cannot 
think that conquerors would have listened to people whom 
they thought fit for nothing but to kill or make slaves of So 
our forefathers still worshipped Woden and Thunder and their 
other Gods, just as they had done before they came into 
Britain. They believed that their Kings were descended from 
Woden, and I suppose that no one who was not thought to be 
a descendant of Woden would ever have been chosen King in 
any part of England at this time. But though they always 
chose a descendant of Woden, they really chose their Kings, 
and the Crown did not always go in what we should call the 
right line. In such a state of things, when men are fierce and 



FOUNDATION OF THF ENGLISH KINGDOMS. 41 

fond of fighting, a King's power depends very much upon what 
sort of a man he is himself. If he is a brave, open-handed 
warrior, he can do whatever he pleases ; if he is a weak man 
who cannot fight well, he is very likely turned out of his King- 
dom altogether. But our English Kings never ruled quite after 
their own will. They always had to consult the Wita?i or 
Wise Men of the Kingdom. And in every part there were 
smaller courts and assemblies for judging and settling matters, 
for we were a free people from the beginning. Yet high birth 
was held in great reverence, and men were divided into Eoilas 
and Ceorlas, that is, Eaids and Churls^ according as they were 
noble or not. The churl was expected to live under some 
lord, and to follow him to battle when he was called on. The 
King had his own followers, who were called his Thegiias or 
Thajies^ that is servants, but, as it was thought an honour to 
serve the King, Thegn became a title of honour. Still all men 
in the land were free, except those who were actually slaves. 
Men became slaves in two ways, either by being taken pri- 
soners in battle, or by being made slaves by sentence of the 
law for certain crimes. In some parts of England there were 
very few slaves, in others there were very many. There were 
most of them in those shires which lay along the Welsh 
border, where of course many Welshmen were made prisoners 
and kept as bondsmen. • 

Such were our forefathers and the Kingdoms which they 
founded up to the end of the sixth century. In the last years 
of that century Christianity began to be preached to them ; 
and, in the course of a hundred years after that time, all Eng- 
land became Christian. This is what I mean to tell you about 
in my next chapter. 

^ This word, like villain^ kjtave, boo?', variety meant at first simply a con- 
dition of life, and did not, as it now does, imply anything morally wrong in 
the man himself. 



CHAPTER VL 

HOW THE ENGLISH BECAME CHRISTIANS. 

Thus it was that Britain became England, and our fathers now 
dwelled in the land from the North Sea to the Severn, and 
from the Channel to the Firth of Forth. Now, as I before 
told you, the conquest of Britain by the English was not like 
the conquests made elsewhere by other Teutonic peoples ; for 
elsewhere those who came into the land soon learned to speak 
Latin, and to believe in Christ, if they had not believed in Him 
before. But in Britain our forefathers still went on speaking 
their own tongue, and serving their own Gods. But about a 
hundred and fifty years after they began to settle in Britain, 
and a very little time after Ceawlin had won his great victories 
over the Welsh, the English first began to believe in the true 
faith. But they did" not learn it from the Christians who still 
were in Britain, for they were all driven out or killed or made 
slaves, so that the Welsh were not likely to try to teach the 
English, nor were the English likely to listen to them if they had 
tried. Our fathers wxre first brought to the faith by the teaching 
of good men who were sent into Britain by Gregory, the Bishop 
of Rome, in the year 597. ''In this year," says the Chronicle, 
" Gregorius the Pope sent into Britain Augustinus with very 
many monks, who gospelled God's word to the English folk." 
" Gospelled," you will see, is the same as " preached " or 
"- taught;" they told them, that is, the Gospel, \\it good spell or 
tale^ the good news of what God had done and would do for 
them. 

Thus far the Chronicle ; but B8eda, a monk of Northumber- 
land, who lived from 674 to 735, and who, for his learning and 
goodness, is commonly called Venerable Bede, tells us a great 



HOW THE ENGLISH BECAME CHRISTIAN'S. 43 

deal more. You see that B^da did not live quite at the 
time, so that we still cannot be quite certain that we know 
everything exactly as it happened. Still the story as it is 
told by Baeda is so famous an one that you ought to know 
it, and there is no reason at all w^hy it may not be true in the 
main. 

Gregory, called the Great, was Pope,^ that is, Bishop of 
Rome, the chief Bishop of the Western Church. As Rome 
was the first city in the world, and as the Roman Emperors 
were held to be lords of the world, the Church of Rome was 
naturally held to be the first of all Churches, and the Bishop of 
Rome to be the first of all Bishops. He was the Patriarch or 
chief Bishop of the West, as the Bishops of Constantinople 
or New Rome, of Alexandria, i\ntioch, and Jerusalem, were 
Patriarchs in different parts of the East. And as the Emperors 
had now quite left Italy and lived at Constantinople, the Pope, 
or Bishop of Rome, gradually became something more than 
merely a Bishop. He became the chief man in Rome and 
in Italy, and indeed in the w^hole West, and he had often 
to act for himself vfithout consulting the Emperor. This 
happened especially when he had, as he often had, to deal 
with Kings and nations beyond the borders of the Empire. 
Thus the Bishops of Rome gradually gained very great power, 
much more than ever was gained by the Patriarchs of Con- 
stantinople, who had the Emperor near to control them. In 
after times, as you may have heard, the power of the Popes 
grew greater still, and it was often very badly used, and many 
abuses were brought into the Church, till at last our own Church 
and several other Churches found it needful to throw off their 
obedience to the Pope altogether. But there was nothing of 
this sort as yet in Gregory's days ; the Popes were still only 
the first Bishops of the Western Church, and they often did 
a great deal of good by acting as a sort of common father 
to all the nations, in days when there was so much war and 
confusion everywhere. Thus it was that the Bishop of Rome 
was the most natural person to undertake the conversion of 
the English, or of any other heathen nation in the West, 

1 The word Pope, Papa, Trairas, simply means /??///^r. In the East this 
name is given to every Priest, but in the West only to the Bishop of Rome. 



44 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

and the more so as Britain had once been a Christian coun- 
try and a province of the Roman Empire. 

Now B^da tells us that the reason which made Pope Gregory 
so anxious to make Christians of the English was as follows. 
Some time before he became Pope (which was in the year 590), 
perhaps about the year 574, he went one day through the mar- 
ket at Rome, where, among other things, there were still men, 
women, and children to be sold as slaves. He there saw some 
beautiful boys who had just been brought by a slave-merchant, 
boys with a fair skin and long fair hair, as English boys then 
would have. He asked from what part of the world they came, 
and whether they were Christians or heathens. He was told 
that they were heathen boys from the Isle of Britain. Gregory 
was sorry to think that forms which were so fair without should 
have no light within, and he asked again what was the name of 
their nation. '' Angles^' he was told.^ " Angles]' said Gregory ; 
'•' they have the faces of Angels^ and they ought to be made 
fellow-heirs of the Angels in heaven. But of what province or 
tribe of the Angles are they ?" " Of Deira^'^ said the merchant. 
'' Deha!'' said Gregory: ''then they must be delivered from 
the wrath " — in Latin de ira — " of God. And what is the name 
of their King ?" " ^lla." '' ^lla; 2 then Alleluia shall be sung 
in that land." Gregory then went to the Pope, and asked him 
to send missionaries into Britain, of whom he himself would be 
one, to convert the English. The Pope was willing, but the 
people of Rome, among whom Gregory was a priest and was 
much beloved, would not let him go. So nothing came of the 
matter for som.e while. We do not know whether Gregory was 
able to do anything for the poor little English boys whom he 
saw in the market, but he certainly never forgot his plan for 
converting the English people. After a while he became Pope 

1 It must be remembered that in this dialogue, which of course was in 
Latin, Gregory's sayings take the form of a series of plays upon words, 
such as we call puns, all of which cannot (though some can) be preserved 
in English. 

2 ^lle or ^lla was King of Deira from 559 to 588. The conversation 
between Gregory and the slave-merchant therefore happened before 588. 
And it could not have happened before 574, when Benedict the First 
became Pope, for it was either of him or of his successor Pelagius that 
Gregory asked leave to go. 



HOW THE ENGLISH BECAME CHRISTIANS. 45 

himself. Of course he now no longer thought of going into 
Britain himself, as he had enough to do at Rome. But he now 
had power to send others. He therefore presently sent a com- 
pany of monks, with one called Augustine^ at their head, who 
was the first Archbishop of Canterbury, and is called the 
Apostle of the English, 

This was in 597. The most powerful King in Britain at that 
time was ^thelberht of Kent, who is reckoned as the third - 
Bretwalda, and is said to have been lord over all the Kings 
south of the Humber. This ^thelberht had done what was 
very seldom done by English Kings then or for a long time 
after : he had married a foreign wife. You know that now 
Kings and Princes almost always marry foreigners, because 
they think themselves too great to have anything to do with 
their own people. But it was not so in the old time. The Old- 
English Kings almost always married Englishwomen, the daugh- 
ters either of other English Kings, or else of their o^vn nobles ; 
so our Kings then were true Englishmen. But King JEthel- 
berht, for what reason we do not know, had married a foreign 
vrife, the daughter of Chariberht,^ one of the Kings of the Franks 
in GauL There wxre at this time several Frankish Kingdoms 
in Gaul, and this Chariberht reigned at Paris. Now the Franks, 
as you know, were Christians j so when the Frankish Queen 
came over to Kent, yEthelberht promised that she should be 
allowed to keep to her own religion without let or hindrance. So 
she brought with her a Frankish Bishop named Liudhard, and 
the Queen and her Bishop used to w^orship God in a little 
church near Canterbury called Saint Martin's, which had been 

1 You must take care and not confound Saint Augustine of Canterbury 
with the other Saint Augustine Avho, on account of the writings which he 
left, is reckoned as one of the "Fathers" of the Church. He was Bishop 
of Hippo in Africa in the fifth century, and is very famous for the books 
which he wrote. Our Saint Augustine does not seem to have left any 
writings behind him, except a few letters. 

'^ yElle of Sussex is reckoned the first, and Ceawlin of Wessex the 
second. 

3 This is the same name as Herbert In Old-English it is Hereherht, 
from here, an old word for an army, and berht or briht, a word which 
we have hardly changed. But in writing the names of the old Frankish 
Kings, a cJi is generally used for our h. Perhaps they sounded it harder 
than we did. 



46 OLD ENGLISH HIS TOR Y FOR CHILDREN 

built in the Roman times. So you see that both ^thelberht 
and his people must have known something about the Christian 
faith before Augustine came. It does not however seem that 
either the King or any of his people had at all thought of 
turning Christians. This seems strange when one reads how 
easily they were converted afterwards. For one would have 
thought that Bishop Liudhard would have been more hkely to 
convert them than Augustine, for, being a Frank, he would 
speak a tongue not very different from English, while Augustine 
spoke Latin, and, if he ever knew English at all, he must have 
learned it after he came into the island. I cannot tell you for 
certain why this was. Perhaps they did not think that a man 
who^had merely come in the Queen's train was so well worth 
listening to as one who had come on purpose all the way from 
the great city of Rome, to which all the West still looked up as 
the capital of the world. 

So Augustine and his companions set out from Rome, and 
passed through Gaul, and came into Britain, even as Caesar had 
done ages before. But this time Rome had sent forth men not to 
conquer lands, but to win souls. They landed first in the Isle 
of Thanet, which joins close to the east part of Kent, and 
thence they sent a message to King .^Ethelberht saying why 
they had come into his land.^ The King sent word back to 
them to stay in the isle till he had fully made up his mind how to 
treat them ; and he gave orders that they should be well taken 
care of meanwhile. After a little while he came himself into 
the isle, and bade them come and tell him what they had to 
say. He met them in the open air, for he would not meet 
them in a house, as he thought they might be wizards, and that 
they might use some charm of spell, which he thought would 

1 They brought with them Frankish interpreters out of Gaul. Perhaps 
these men may have known Enghsh, or it may be that there was still so 
little difference between Old-English and the Old-German which the 
Franks spoke, that m.en of each tongue could understand the other. But 
in any case the Queen and her Bishop would understand them. They 
must also have understood Latin, or Augustine could not have made any 
use of them. Of course any priest, or any man of any education, in Gaul 
at this time would speak both Latin and German. It must be remem- 
bered that all intercourse between Augustine and the English, for some 
time at least, must have been through these interpreters. 



HOW THE ENGLISH BECAME CHRISTIANS. 47 

have less power out of doors. So they came, carrying an nuage 
of our Lord on the Cross wrought in silver, and singing litanies 
as they came. And when they came before the King, they 
preached the Gospel to him and those who were with him, 
telling them, no doubt, how there was one God, who had made 
all things, and how He had sent His Son Jesus Christ to die 
upon the cross for mankind, and how He would come again at 
the end of the world to judge the quick and the dead. So King 
^^theiberht hearkened to them, and he made answer like a good 
and wise man. '' Your words and promises," said he, ^' sound 
very good unto me ; but they are new and strange, and I can- 
not believe them all at once, nor can I leave all that I and my 
fathers and the whole English folk have believed so long. But 
I see that ye have come from a far country to tell us that which 
ye yourselves hold for truth ; so ye may stay in the land, and I 
v/ill give you a house to dwell in and food to eat \ a.nd ye may 
preach to my folk, and if any man of them will believe as ye 
believe, I hinder him not." So he gave them a house to dwell 
in in the royal city of Canterbury, and he let them preach to the 
people. And, as they drew near to the city, they carried their 
silver image of the Lord Jesus, and sang litanies, saying, " We 
pray Thee, O Lord, let Thy anger and Thy wrath be turned 
away from this city and from Thy holy house, because we have 
sinned. Alleluia!" 

Thus Augustine and his companions dwelt at Canterbury, 
and worshipped in the old church where the Queen worshipped, 
and preached to the men of the land. And many men 
hearkened to them and were baptized, and before long King 
^thelberht himself believed and was baptized \ and before the 
year was out there were added to the Church more than ten 
thousand souls. When the King was baptized, he told them 
that they might build and repair^ churches throughout the land. 
And now m.any more of the people were eager to do as their 
King had done j but King ^thelberht did not, as many Kings 
have done since, force any man to do as he did and think as 

1 This shows that there must have been some of the old Roman churches 
still standing, though they were most likely in ruins. Or, if the word 
rciitaurare should be thought to mean to build again on the same place, it 
at anv rate shows that men still knew where the old churches had stood. 



48 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

he thought. Only he loved those men better who were his 
countrymen m the Kingdom of Heaven, as well as in his 
Kingdom on earth. 

All this time Augustine was only a priest, but he knew that, 
according to the laws of the Church, he could not govern his 
new church rightly, nor make other priests, till he was him- 
self made a Bishop. So he went back to Aries, in the south of 
Gaul, and was consecrated a Bishop by ^therius, the Arch- 
bishop of that city. He then came back and, with the King's 
help, built, or rather repaired,^ a church in Canterbury to be 
his cathedral or head church. He then consecrated it to the 
honour of our Lord Christ; and, though it has since been 
several times rebuilt, it still remains the head church of all Eng- 
land, and is still known as Christ Church in Canterbury. He 
also built another church with a house of monks belonging to 
it, which he called the Abbey of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, but 
which, after his death, was called the Abbey of Saint Augustine. 
What is left of it was some years back made into a College, 
where men are taught to go and preach the Gospel in other 
lands, as Augustine did in the land of Britain. 

It would be too long if I told you all that Augustine did, 
and exactly how every part of England was converted by him 
and those who came after him. But there are one or two 
things which you must hear about. You will remember that 
the old Britons or Welsh, whom the English drove out, were, 
most of them at any rate. Christians, and so were the Irish or 
Scots, ^ both in Ireland and in what we now call Scotland. 
Now Augustine thought that it would be right to try and make 
friends with the Welsh Bishops, that they might join together 
in preaching to those of the English who were still heathens. 
So he went, with the help of King ^thelberht, to a place on 
the Severn in Gloucestershire, where he had a meeting with the 
Welsh Bishops under a great oak, which was therefore called 
Augustine's Oak, and from which the place is called Aust still. 

1 The words of Baeda show clearly that the Roman building was still 
standing, and as clearly that it was no longer used as a church. 

- These words are used almost indiscriminately, because the Scots first 
came out of Ireland into Scotland. The word " Scotus" most commonly 
means an Irishman. 



HOW THE ENGLISH BECAME CHRISTIANS. 49 

It is still one of the chief places for crossing the Severn, which 
was then the boundary of England and Wales. It was therefore 
a good place for meeting those who came out of Wales itself, 
and it was not so very far from the W^elsh who were still in Corn- 
wall, Devon, and Somerset, for you will remember that Ceawlin 
had not conquered further than the Axe, so that some of these 
Welsh Bishops may have come from those parts. But it was 
a long way for Augustine to go from his own home in Kent, 
but you will remember that ^thelberht was Bretwalda, with a 
certain power over the other Kings, so that no doubt any one 
who v/as protected by him could go safely even in those parts 
of the country which were not part of his own Kingdom. So 
Augustine Avent and talked with the British Bishops under the 
oak. But unhappily they did not agree, because, though the 
Welsh were Christians, they did not do in everything exactly 
as Augustine had been used to do at Rome. For instance, 
they did not keep Easter on the same day that the rest of the 
Western Churches did, and there were some other small 
matters about which they could not agree, though it does not 
seem that there was any difference between them about those 
things which all Christians ought to believe. No doubt there 
were faults on both sides, as neither side would yield to the 
other in anything. One cannot help thinking that Augustine 
must have forgotten some of the good advice which Pope 
Gregory had given him. For Gregory had told him in one of his 
letters that, in ordering his new Church, he was not bound to do 
in everything exactly as was done at Rome, but that it would be 
right to choose from among the customs of different Churches 
those which seemed most likely to suit the place and the 
people that he had to do with. The truth is that, though Augus- 
tine was a very good man, he was not nearly so wise and far- 
seeing as Gregory was, and he was too apt to think that every- 
thing must be wrong which was not exactly like w^hat he had 
been used to at Rome. At any rate Augustine and the Welsh 
Bishops could not agree, and the Welshmen would not join 
him in preaching to the heathen English. Then it is said, but 
Bseda speaks as if he were not quite certain of it, that Augus- 
tine spoke thus to them : *' If ye will not join me in preaching 
the way of life to the English, ye shall suffer the vengeance of 

E 



50 OLD ENGLISH HIS TOR Y FOR CHILDREN, 

death at their hands." This was thought to be a prophecy, 
because, some years afterwards (in 607), when Augustine was 
dead, ^thelfrith, the heathen King of the Northumbrians, came 
and fought with the Welsh by Caerleon on the Dee,^ and when 
he saw many monks ^ praying, he said, " If these men pray to 
their God that we may be beaten, it is all one as if they were 
fighting against us." So he smote the monks and slew them 
first of all, as many as twelve hundred, and then smote the 
rest of the Welshmen. 

All the time of Augustine then, and for some years after, 
Northumberland was heathen. But after a time there arose a 
great King in Deira, called Eadwine or Edwin. He was 
Bretwalda, and he is said in the Chronicle to have been lord 
over all Britain save Kent alone. He was also, as you will 
soon hear, the first Christian King of Northumberland. But 
he was so famous a man that I must tell you his whole tale as 
Baeda tells it, only you must remember that as Baeda did not 
live quite at the time, it may not all of it be true.^ 

1 Civitas Legiomim^ Legecmster, Caerlleon. Baeda and the Chronicle give 
all these names, and they are in truth the same name in Latin, Enghsh, 
and Welsh. Caer in Welsh means a fortified place, just like ceasta^ in 
English, only it is put at the beginning of the word instead of the end. 
Thus Caerlleon and Legeceaster mean the same thing, the City of Legions. 
Just in the same way Caergwent is the same name as our Winchester, in 
Latin Veiita. Both Winchester and Caerwent in Monmouthshire are Venta 
in Latin. So Caerleon-on-Usk, and Chester on the Dee, and Leicester in 
the middle of England, have all the same name, Civitas Legioiium^ 
Legeceaster, and Caerlleon, according to the language used. But the one 
which is meant here is neither the town which is now called Leicester, nor 
yet Caerleon, but Chester on the Dee. 

2 They were monks from Bangor, a monastery in Flintshire, not very 
far from Chester, which you must not confound with the Bishoprick of 
Bangor in Caernarvonshire. 

3 Stories like this of Eadwine, which contain a certain portion of mar- 
vellous, if not miraculous, incidents, cannot well be wholly left out, when they 
form an actual part of the history. The general truth of the history of 
Eadwine cannot be doubted ; on the other hand there are parts of it which 
can hardly have happened exactly as they are told. And we have no 
strictly contemporary writer to help us to check the story. The only fair 
way in such a case seems to be to tell the story as we find it, adding some 
such warning as I have given in the text. The case is of course quite 
different when we come to mere legends, not worked into the history, 
which can be either wholly left out or told as legends. It is different again 



HOW THE ENGLISH BECAME CHRISTIANS, 51 



Edwin, the son of ^lle, was born of the royal house of 
Deira, and his father ^lle w^as King of the land. But ^lle 
died when Edwin his son was but a little child, so ^thelfrith 
King of Bernicia came and took the kingdom of -^Ue to 
himself and reigned over all Northumberland. Then they who 
loved the house of ^lle fled, and took with them the child 
Edw^in, and they wandered to and fro through many lands, 
seeking shelter and help for the son of their master. So 
Edwin grew up in exile away from his own land, and he dwelt 
now among the Britons and now among the Mercians, till he 
came to the land of Raedw^ald, the King of the East Angles. 
Then he said to King Ra3dwald, " O King, I am Edwin of 
Deira, and ^thelfrith my foe hath seized my father's kingdom 
and seeketh my life. Let me, I pray thee, dwxll in thy land, 
and deliver me not over into the hand of mine enemy." Then 
Raedw^ald had pity on him. and said, " Thou may est dwell in my 
land, and no man shall hurt thee or give thee over into the 
hand of ^thelfrith." But it was told ^thelfrith, saying, " Lo, 
Edwin dwelleth in peace in the land of the East Angles." 
Then ^thelfrith sent unto Raedwald, saying, " Slay me Edwin 
mine enemy, and I will give thee much gold and silver.^' 
But Rsedwald would not hearken, and he said, " I will not 
slay him that hath sought shelter in my land, and dw^elleth in 
peace in my house." Then sent ^thelfrith the second time, 
saying, '^ I will give thee greater gifts than I said aforetime, if 
thou wilt only slay Edwin mine enemy." But Raedw^ald w^ould 
not hearken, and he answ^ered the second time, "Be thy gifts 
unto thyself, for I will not slay Edwin." Then sent JEthelfrith 
the third time, saying, '' Slay me Edwin, and I will give thee 
such gifts as thou hast not seen or heard of; but if thou wilt 

wlien we have contemporary accounts with which we can compare a mar- 
vellous story. In the present case each man must settle for himself 
whether the marvellous part of the tale was a real miracle, or a dream, 
or a mere remarkable coincidence, or the misconception or invention of 
some one afterwards. In any case it is an essential part of the story, 
and cannot in fairness be separated from the rest. 

E 2 



52 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN, 

not slay him or deliver him into my hand, then will I fight 
against thee, and smite thee and thy people with a great 
slaughter." Then Raedwald feared, for he knew that the 
people of the Northumbrians were more than the people of the 
East Angles, and he had heard how ^thelfrith was a mighty 
man of valour, and how he had smitten the Welsh at Chester, 
and how he had smitten the Scots at Daegsanstan,^ and 
Raedwald said in his heart, ^'If ^thelfrith cometh against me 
to battle, I shall be even as one of them, and I shall not be 
able to stand before the host of the Northumbrians." So 
Raedwald spake to the messengers of ^thelfrith, saying, " Tarry 
awhile in my house, and I will either slay Edwin or I will 
deliver him into your hand." 

Now Edwin had a friend who heard what Raedw^ald had said 
unto the messengers of ^thelfrith. So he went to Edwin in 
his chamber (for it was the first hour of the night), and he said, 
"'- Come forth out of the house." So Edwin came forth out of 
the house, and his friend said unto him, " Lo, Raedwald hath 
promised to slay thee or to give thee into the hand of ^thel- 
frith. Follow me therefore, and I will in the same hour lead 
thee out of this land, and hide thee where neither Raedwald 
nor ^thelfrith may find thee." But Edwin said, "I thank 
thee well for thy good-will, but I cannot follow thee. I have 
sworn to Raedwald that I will dwell in his land, and I may not 
go back from that I have spoken, while he hath done me no 
harm nor hath wrought anything unfriendly against me. Nay 
rather, if I must die, let me die by the hand of Raedwald, and 
not by the hand of a meaner man. For whither shall I fly, 
who have so long fled through all the kingdoms of Britain 
seeking where I may dwell safely and may escape out of the 
hand of them that seek my life?" 

So his friend went his way, and Edwin sat alone on a stone 
before the house. And his heart was very sorrowful, and he 
knew not what to do or whither to turn him. Then there came 
a man and stood before him, a man of strange countenance and 
clad in strange raiment, such as Edwin had never before seen, 
and Edwin feared as he saw him. Then said he, " Wherefore 

^ This was in 603. ^gdan King of Scots was utterly defeated. 



HOW THE ENGLISH BECAME CHRISTIANS, 53 

dost thou, Avhile other men sleep, sit thus alone and sad on a 
stone before the house ?" And Edwin answered and said, '' What 
is it to thee w-hether I abide this night within or without the 
house ?" Then the strange man answ^ered and said, " Think 
not that I know thee not who thou art, and w^hy thou art sad 
and sleepest not, and why thou sittest thus alone before the 
house. For truly I know thee well who thou art, and where- 
fore thou art sad, and I know what evils they are that thou 
fearest lest they should come upon thee. But tell me, what 
reward wilt thou give unto him w^ho shall free thee from all thy 
sorrows, and shall persuade Rsedwald so that he shall neither 
do thee any harm nor deliver thee into the hands of them that 
seek thy life?" Then Edwin answered and said, "All that I 
have will I give as a reward to him that shall do this thing for 
me." Then the strange man answered and said, "And what 
wilt thou do if a man shall promise thee of a truth that thou . 
shalt smite thine enemies and reign in their stead, and be a 
mightier King than were any of thy forefathers, yea or any of 
the Kings that have ever reigned over the people of the 
English?" And Edwin answered and said, "Yea verily, if a 
man shall do this thing unto me, I will give him such a reward 
as shall be fitting for his good deeds." Then the strange man 
spake unto him the third time, and said, "Yea, and when this 
thing hath come to pass, and when thou sittest on thy father's 
throne, and art mightier than all the Kings that have gone 
before thee, what wilt thou do, if he that promised thee all 
these things shall tell thee of a new life and a new law better 
than any that thou or thy fathers have known ? Wilt thou then 
believe him, and obey him, and do such things as he shall 
speak unto thee for thy good?" And Edwin answered and 
said, "Yea verily, if such a man shall deliver me out of my 
sorrows, and set me on my father's throne, I will believe him 
and obey him in all things whatsoever he shall say unto me." 
Then the strange man laid his hand on Edwin's head and spake 
unto him, saying, "When this sign shall come unto thee, 
remember this night and remember thine own words, and 
delay not to do that which thou hast promised." Then the 
strange man vanished out of Edmn's sight, and he saw him no 
more, and he said in his heart, " This is not a man, but rather 



54 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

one of the great gods/ or one of the kind elves that hath 
spoken with me." 

So Edwin sat alone before the house, and he rejoiced greatly 
in his heart at what the strange man had said unto him, and 
he greatly wondered who the man might be and whence he 
had come. Then came forth the friend who had before spoken 
to him, and he came with a joyful countenance, and said unto 
Edwin, *^ Rise up, and come into the house, and lay aside thy 
sorrows, and let thy limbs rest in sleep, for the King's heart is 
changed, and he will do thee no harm, but he will keep the 
promise that he hath sworn unto thee. For the King spake 
unto the Queen his wife, saying, ' I fear ^thelfrith, and his 
gifts that he promiseth are great, so I have said that I will give 
Edwin into his hand.' But the Queen said unto him, ^ Sell 
not, O King, for gold thy friend that is in trouble, and do not 
for the sake of wealth lose thine honour, which is of more price 
than all jewels.'" 

So Raedwald spared Edwin and gave him not over into the 
hand of JEthelfrith. And Raedwald gathered together an host, 
and fought against ^thelfrith by the river which is called Idle, 
by the northern border of the land of the Mercians. Now the 
host of ^thelfrith was greater than the host of Raedwald, yet 
was the victory with Raedwald, and he smote ^thelfrith that 
he died, and he smote his host with a great slaughter. How- 
beit the son of Raedwald, whose name was Raegenhere, was 
slain there also.^ So Edwan reigned over all Northumberland, 
and he was the mightiest of all the Kings of the Isle of 
Britain, and all the lords both of the English and also of the 
Welsh were his servants. And he went forth and warred with 
them that dwelt in the Isle Mona,^ which is Man, and in the 

1 Bseda, clearly copying the words of more than one story in the Bible, 
says, "he understood that it was not a man but a spirit." But Edwin, as a 
heathen, would of course think that the wonderful person who had spoken 
to him was one of the gods whom he worshipped. It is easy to see that 
Bseda would not like to put heathen words into his mouth, but one may be 
sure that that was the way that the story ran when it was first told. 

" One might almost have expected to be told that the death of Raegenhere 
was a judgement on Raedwald for having ever thought of giving up Edwin. 
The tale might be told in that way with great force, but I do not find it 
so in Bseda. ^ Or Mevania. 



HOW THE ENGLISH BECAME CHRISTIANS. 55 

Other Mona which lieth by the land of the Welsh, and they 
became his servants. And because Edwin had conquered the 
isle, the name of the isle was no longer called Mona, but 
Anglesey, the Isle of the English. 

So Edwin reigned, and he was a wise and just King and 
loved righteousness, and there was peace in the land wherever 
he reigned. And a woman with her sucking child might go 
through the land from one end thereof to the other, and no 
man would dare to harm her for fear of King Edwin. And 
he loved his people, and wherever there were springs of water 
by the wayside he put up stakes and hung brazen cups thereon, 
that men might drink, and no man durst stead those cups for 
love or for fear of King Edwin. And when King Edmn rode 
forth through the towns and villages of his Kingdom he had a 
banner borne before him, even as the Caesars of Rome had. 
for that he was lord of the land of Britain, even as they were 
lords of the land of Rome. 

Now it came to pass after these things, that Edwin sent 
messengers to Eadbald, King of the Kentishmen, sapng, 
^•'Give me ^thelburh thy sister to wife." Now -^thelberht 
the great King was dead, and Eadbald his son reigned in Kent. 
And Eadbald answered, " I cannot give thee my sister to vvife ; 
for thou art an heathen man, and I may not give my sister, who 
believeth in the Lord Christ, to a man who knoweth not the 
law of our God." But Eci\nn sent again, sa}dng, ^' Give me 
thy sister to wife, and I \^dll not constrain her, but she shall 
worship what God she will, and she shall bring with her, if she 
will, servants of her God, whether they be men or women, 
and they shall serv-e your God after your law. Yea, and I will 
hearken to them, and I will learn what your faith and your 
law of which ye speak is. And if I find it to be better than 
mine own law and more worthy of God, I will even believe as 
ye believe." So King Eadbald let ^thelburh his sister go, 
and Edwin took her to ^^ife. And she took with her a certain 
priest called Paullinus, who was hallowed as Bishop by Justus 
the Archbishop of Canterbury, that he might keep her in the 
right way, and might also preach unto the men of the land. 
But EdwTLn and the men of the land believed not, for that the 
god of this world had blinded their eyes. 



56 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

Now in the next year Cwichelm the King of the West- 
Saxons sought to slay Edwin. And he sent one of his ser- 
vants called Eomer, with a two-edged dagger dipped in 
poison, to smite Edwin and slay him. So Eomer came 
to King Edwin by the river of Derwent, and said unto him, 
" I am a messenger to thee, O King, from my lord King 
Cwichelm." But w^hile Edwin hearkened, Eomer drew his 
dagger and struck at Edwin. But Lilla the King's Thane 
threw himself before his lord, so that the dagger smote him 
and went through his body and wounded Edwin. So Lilla 
died, and the men that were by him drew their swords and 
slew Eomer. 

Now that day was the Feast of Easter, but Edwin and his 
people still served Woden and the other gods of their fathers. 
But in the same night Queen ^Ethelburh bare a daughter to 
Edwdn, and Edwin gave great thanks to his gods. But Paullinus 
the Bishop gave thanks to the Lord Christ, and he said, " O 
King, I have prayed to my God whom I serve, and He hath 
granted thee this child, and hath given thee the Queen thy 
wife safe and sound." Then Edwin said, '* I am going forth to 
battle against Cwichelm King of the West-Saxons, who hath 
sought to slay me by craft. If I return in peace, then will I 
believe in thy God and worship Him. Yea and the babe that 
the Queen my wife hath borne unto me, thou mayest baptize 
her as thou and her mother are baptized." So on Whitsunday 
Paullinus baptized the babe and eleven other of the King's 
household, and they called the babe's name Eanflsed. Now 
King Edwin's w^ound was healed, and he went forth to battle 
against the W^est-Saxons, and smote them with a great slaughter, 
and slew five of their Kings. ^ So Edwin came back in peace 
to his own land. And he no more served Woden and Thunder 
and the other gods of his fathers. Yet was he not at once 
baptized ; but he thought much of all that Paullinus had said 
unto him, and he often spake with him and pondered in his 
heart w^hether these things were so or no. And one day he 
sat by himself and thought thereon. Then came Paullinus to 

1 See the Chronicle A.D. 626. It must always be remembered that the 
seven Kingdoms were only the chief among many smaller ones. Here vre 
have five Kings in Wessex besides Cwichelm the head King. 



HOW THE ENGLISH BECAME CHRISTIANS. 57 

him and laid his hand on his head and said, " Knowest thou 
this sign?" And Edwin trembled and fell at his feet. Then 
Paullinus stretched forth his hand and lifted him up, and said 
unto him, " Be of good cheer, Edwin ; the Lord whom I serve 
hath delivered thee out of the hand of the enemies whom thou 
didst fear, and ile hath given thee the kingdom which thou 
didst desire. Defer not then to do the thing which thou 
didst promise." Then Edwin knew that it was he who spake 
to him by night as he sat at the gate of the house of R^dwald ; 
and he believed. 

Then King Edmn sent forth and gathered together his Alder- 
men and his Thanes and all his wise men, and they took 
counsel together. And men said one to another, ''What is 
this new law whereof men speak ? Shall we leave the gods of 
our fathers and serve the God of Paullinus, or shall we forbear ?" 
And one spake on this manner and another spake on that 
manner. Then arose Coifi the High Priest of Woden and 
said, " Tell us, O King, what this new law is ; for this one 
thing I know, that these gods w^hom w^e have so long wor- 
shipped profit a man not at all. For of a truth there is no 
man in thy land who hath served all our gods more truly than 
I have, yet there be many men who are richer and gi'eater 
than I, and to whom thou, O King, showest more favour. Where- 
fore I trow that our gods have no might nor power, for if they 
had, they would have made me greater and richer than all 
other men. Wherefore let us hearken to what these men say, 
and learn what their law is ; and if we find it to be better than 
our own, let us serve their God and worship Him." 

Then another of the King's Thanes arose and said, '' Truly 
the hfe of a man in this world, compared with that life whereof 
we wot not, is on this wise. It is as when thou, O King, art 
sitting at supper with thine Aldermen and thy Thanes in the time 
of winter, when the hearth is lighted in the midst and the hall 
is warm, but without the rains and the snow are falling and 
the winds are howling ; then cometh a sparrow and flieth 
through the house ; she cometh in by one door and goeth out 
by another. Whiles she is in the house she feeleth not the 
storm of winter, but yet, Avhen a httle moment of rest is passed, 
she flieth again into the storm, and passeth away from our 



58 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

eyes. So is it with the hfe of man ; it is but for a moment ; 
what goeth afore it and what cometh after it, wot we not at all. 
Wherefore if these strangers can tell us aught, that we may know 
whence man cometh and whither he goeth, let us hearken to 
them and follow their law/' 

So he spake, and the more part of the Kings Thanes and 
wise men said that he had well spoken. Then arose Coifi the 
Priest the second time and spake, saying : ^' Let us even now 
hear Paullinus, and let him tell us what his new doctrine is." 
Then King Edwin commanded that so it should be ; and 
Paullinus preached the Gospel unto them. Then spake Coifi 
yet again : " Truly I have long known that those things which 
we were wont to worship were naught ; for the more I sought 
for truth in worshipping them the less I found it. But now say 
I openly that in that which this man preach eth I see plainly 
the truth which can give us the gift of health and happiness 
everlasting. Wherefore, O King, my counsel is that we do at 
once root up and burn down those temples and altars which 
we have hallowed, and yet have got no good thereby." Then 
King Edwin spake and said that he would henceforth wor- 
ship the God of Paullinus and none other. And he said, 
" Who will be the first to throw down the altar and the temple 
of our false gods and the hedge which is round about them ?" 
Then said Coifi, " I will. For who rather than I shall throw 
down that before which I have worshipped in my folly, now 
that God hath given me wisdom thereunto? Wherefore, O 
King, give me an horse and weapons withal, that I may ride to 
the temple of the false Gods and throw down the same." Now 
it was the law of the Angles that a priest might not wear 
weapons, nor might he ride except on a mare. So Coifi 
girded him with a sword, and took a spear in his hand, and 
he rode on the King's own horse to the place where was 
the temple of idols. Now it was at a place which is called 
Godmundingham, which lieth to the east of the royal city 
of Eoforwic (which men now for shortness call York), be- 
yond the river of Derwent. And when men saw Coifi the 
Priest wearing weapons and riding on the King's horse, they 
said, ^^ Of a truth Coifi the Priest is mad." But when he 
drew near to the temple he hurled his spear at it, and bade his 



HOW THE ENGLISH BECAME CHRISTIANS. 59 

fellows break down the temple and burn it with the hedge 
that was round about it. 

Thus King Edwin believed, with all his Thanes and wise 
men and the more part of all the folk of Northumberland. 
And he built a church of wood in the city of York, and called 
it by the name of the Apostle Saint Peter, and therein he Avas 
baptized at the Feast of Easter;^ and he bade that Paullinus 
should be Bishop of the city of York and should have that 
church for his see. Now after these things King Edwin reigned 
yet six years, and Paullinus dwelt at York and w^as Bishop there, 
and preached much, and baptized many of the men of the land 
all the days of Edwin. And King Edwin began to build him a 
church of stone in the city of York, but he lived not to finish 
the same, but Oswald his sister's son, who was afterwards 
King of the Northumbrians, finished it. For after six years 
Csedwalla the King of the Welshmen rebelled against King 
Edwin, and Penda the King of the Mercians helped him. 
So C^dwalla and Penda fought against King Edwdn and smote 
him and slew him in the place which is called Heathfield, 
and many evil deeds did they throughout the w^hole land of 
Northumberland. For Penda was still an heathen man and 
w^orshipped the gods of his fathers, and he persecuted them 
that believed in Christ wherever he found them. In those days 
did Paullinus flee from York with ^thelburh the Queen and 
her young children and with the goodly things of the church 
of York, and they came and dwelt in Kent with King Eadbald 
the Queen's brother. And King Edwin's head was brought to 
York, and, when Oswald his sister's son reigned in Northum- 
berland, it was buried in the porch of the minster of Saint 
Peter, which Edwin had begun to build, and w^hich Oswald his 
sister's son finished. 



I have told you the story of Edwin at length, because it is 
such a famous and beautiful tale, but for that very reason I 
must cut some other parts of what I have to say rather shorter. 
After the death of Edwin in 633, there was a time of great con- 

^ April 1 2th, 627. 



6o OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN, 

fusion in Northumberland, during which many men fell back to 
their old gods, but after a while the kingdom came to Oswald, the 
son of JEthelfrith, and nephew of Edwin, who was not only a 
Christian but so good a man that he was reckoned as a saint and 
called Saint Oswald. He fought a battle in 635 at a place 
called Heavenfield, near Hexham, where Caedwalla was killed, 
and the power of the Welsh was utterly broken. After this we 
never again hear of the Welsh as really threatening any of the 
Enghsh Kingdoms ; it was quite as much as they could do to 
keep the land west of the Severn. Oswald now^ reigned as 
Bretwalda, like Edwin, but, like him, he could not stand 
against Penda of Mercia. He died in battle against him in 642 
at a place called Maserfield, and men counted him for a martyr. 
After his death Bernicia and Deira were again divided. Oswine 
reigned in Deira and Oswiu in Bernicia.-^ Oswine is described 
by Baeda as a very good King ; however, war broke out between 
him and Oswiu, and I am sorry to say that Oswiu caused Oswine 
to be treacherously murdered. We may hope however that 
Oswiu afterwards repented of this great sin, for he became one of 
the greatest and best Kings in England. In 655 he won a great 
battle against Penda, who was killed, and for a while Oswiu 
held Mercia as well as Northumberland, and was called Bret- 
walda. Under Oswald and Oswiu Christianity took firm root 
in Northumberland, partly through the help of Scottish mis- 
sionaries. This caused some disputings, for the Scots, like the 
Welsh, differed in some things from the Romans, and therefore 
from the English who had been converted by the Romans. But 
in the end the English commonly thought it better to follow the 
Roman customs as to the time of keeping Easter and the other 
small matters about which the Scots thought differently from 
Augustine and Paullinus. The Scottish Bishops however, of 
whom there were several both in Northumberland and in Mercia, 
seem to have been very good men, and perhaps they were 
better fitted to convert the English than the more learned and 
civilized men who came from Rome and other distant lands. 

1 Oswiu was brother of Oswald, son of ^thelfrith and sister's son to 
Edwin. Oswine was a cousin of Edwin. It should be remarked that 
most of the Northumbrian royal names begin with Os^ as in Wessex they 
afterwards commonly begin with Ead and yEthel. 



HOW THE ENGLISH BECAME CHRISTIANS. 6i 

But before long Englishmen were found fit to be made Bishops, 
and they of course did better than either Scots or Romans. The 
first English Bishop was Ithamar of Rochester in 644. 

Wessex was converted by a Bishop named Birinus, who was 
sent by Pope Honorius. The first Christian Kings of the 
West-Saxons wxre Cynegils and Cwichelm, Cwichelm being 
the King who had once tried to kill Edwin. They founded a 
Bishoprick at Dorchester in Oxfordshire in 639. After Cynegils' 
death his son Cenweaih fell back for a while into heathenism, 
but he was afterwards converted, and founded the Bishoprick of 
Winchester, which remained the Bishoprick of the West-Saxons, 
and Dorchester aftenvards became a Bishoprick of the Mercians. 
You must remember that there was no Bishop of Wells as yet, 
and that as yet only a small part of Somersetshire was English. 
So much as was English must have been in the Diocese of 
Winchester. 

Mercia became Christian after the death of Penda, under his 
sons Peada and Wulfhere. Wulfhere reigned from 657 to 675. 
The first Bishop in Mercia was Diuma, a Scot, but after him 
came Ceadda an Englishman, who is called Saint Chad and 
had his see at Lichfield. Mercia was, I think, the only King- 
dom which did not for a time fall back into heathenism. 
This we have seen happened in Northumberland and Wessex, 
and it was so also in Essex and East-Anglia, and even in Kent. 
For Eadbald the son of ^thelberht fell away and married 
his step-mother; so his mother the Frankish Queen must 
have died before her husband. But Eadbald aftenvards came 
back to the faith, and it was then that, as I before told you, 
he gave his sister -^thelburh in marriage to Edwin, which 
brought about the conversion of Northumberland. 

The last part of the main land of Britain to become Christian 
v/as Sussex. It was but a small state, and it seems to have been 
much more barbarous than other parts of England. The first 
Christian King was called ^thelwealh. He too had married a 
Christian wife, Eaba, from the little Kingdom of the Hwiccas, 
and he was himself baptized at the court of King Wulfhere in 
Mercia. But as yet few of their people were converted, till in 
681 there came among them a Bishop named AVilfrith, who had 
been Bishop of York, but who had been driven out of Northum- 



62 OLD ENGLISH IJISTOR Y FOR CHILDREN. 

berland by the King Ecgfrith the son of O^-;?' ^^^^^Wns 
his father in 670. Wilfrith did much for the South- baxons 
in the wly of civihzing them as ^vell as preachmg to them. 
Amongst other things it is said that till he came they had no 
no^on of catching any fish except eels, but he taught them to 
catTother fish as wdl. He founded the Bishopnck o the 
Sksaxons, the see of which was at first at Selsey, but was 
afterwards ipoved to Chichester. . 

Thus in ess than a hundred years from the commg of Augus- 
tine all' England became Christian. And the English Church 
"s'fo a long time one of the most flourishmg Churches in 
Christendom.^ Many churches and monasteries were b^U^ and 
there were many good and learned men among Kings, Bishops 
and others. And many Englishmen went out as missionaries 
to other lands, especially to our own old ^^"^ ^^ f ^^ ^^^^^ 
many. Wilfrith, who preached to the South-Saxons, preached 
Sso to the Erisians, and there were many other EnghslrBishops 
ki other parts of Germany. The greatest of them was Winfuth 
StenS called Saint Boniface, who was the ^-t Archb^hop of 
Mainz, and who is called the Apostle of ^ermf y. His s.e 
Mainz, became the head church of Germany, as Canterbury is 

*in' my totexl Ste^I shall tell you how the different 
English Kingdoms were all joined into one. 



CHAPTER VII. 

HOW THE KINGS OF THE WEST-SAXONS BECAME LORDS 
OVER ALL ENGLAND. 

PART L 

I HAVE told you how the Angles and Saxons founded many 
Kingdoms in Britain, and I have taught you the names of the 
chief Kingdoms among them, and I have told you that it often 
happened that one Kingdom got for a while a certain power 
over all or most of the others. But you know that now not 
only England, but Wales, Scotland, and Ireland too, make up 
altogether only one Kingdom. It is not so very long since 
Scotland and Ireland were fully united to England, and 
Wales kept its own Princes for many hundred years after the 
times that we have been talking about. WTiat I have now to 
tell you is how England itself, that is the Kingdoms of the 
Angles, Saxons, and other Teutons who had come over into 
Britain, was made into one Kingdom. For in the tenth cen- 
tury, that is, about five hundred years after the English came 
into Britain, all England was for the first time thus thoroughly 
joined together, and since the eleventh century no man has ever 
thought for a moment of dividing it again. Only you must 
know that the northern part of Northumberland came into 
the hands of the Kings of Scots, so that some men of English 
blood and speech were cut off from the rest, and learned to 
call themselves Scots and forgot that they were really English- 
men. Thus it is that the land from the river Tweed to the Firth 
of Forth, though men have always spoken English there, has 
for many hundred years been counted to be part of Scotland. 
But all the rest of the Teutonic people in Britain were gradually 



64 OLD EN'GLISH HIS TOR Y FOR CHILDREN. 

joined together under the Kings of the West-Saxons. From 
the beginning of the ninth century, that power which I have 
told you that some one Kingdom often held over the rest 
became fixed in the hands of the Kings of the West-Saxons. 
From the beginning of the ninth century then, though there 
were still for some time other Kings in the land, yet the Kings 
of the West-Saxons were lords over them, and in the course of 
the tenth century there ceased to be any other Kings in the 
land at all. From that time, instead of being called Kings of 
the West-Saxons, they were called Kings of the English. And 
I have told you that nearly all the Kings who have since 
reigned in England have come of the blood of Cerdic the 
West-Saxon. 

Now this did not happen all at once, so I must go back a 
little, and tell you some more about the West-Saxons and the 
other Kingdoms. But I shall tell you most about the West- 
Saxons, both because it was their Kingdom which in the end 
got the chief power, and because it is in the land of the West- 
Saxons that we ourselves dwell. 

For a long time after Oswald and Oswiu of Northumberland 
no prince is mentioned in the Chronicle as bearing the title of 
Bretwalda. The next on the list, the eighth and last, is Ecg- 
berht of Wessex, in whose time the West-Saxon Kings won a 
lasting power over all the others. We can therefore very well 
see why no Bretwalda is mentioned after him, as from the days 
of Ecgberht onwards the King of the West-Saxons for the time 
being had all the power, and more than the power, that the old 
Bretwaldas had had. But it is not so plain why no Bretwalda is 
mentioned between Oswiu and Ecgberht, as there were during 
that time several Kings both in Mercia and in Wessex who seem 
to have had as much power as any that were before them. One 
might almost have expected to find Penda himself on the list, 
and long after there reigned in Mercia a great King named 
Oifa, of whom I shall speak again presently, who seems to have 
been quite as powerful as any one of the seven before Ecgberht. 
Perhaps Christian writers did not like to reckon such a fierce 
heathen as Penda in the same list as Edwin and Oswald, but 
one hardly sees why Offa is not reckoned. Still, however it 
may be, no Bretwalda is spoken of in the Chronicle between 



THE GROWTH OF WESSEX. 65 

Oswiu and Ecgberht.'' It is certain that during this time, the first 
place among the Enghsh Kingdoms changed about very much, 
being sometimes in the hands of Mercia and sometimes in those 
of Wessex. Northumberland became of less consequence than 
it had been, and we do not hear much of the other four smaller 
Kingdoms. When we do, it is generally as being tributary 
either to Mercia or to Wessex. Kent, however, always kept 
up a certain degree of importance on account of its containing 
the head church of all England at Canterbuiy. 

The last King of the West-Saxons whom I mentioned was 
Cenwealh, who founded the Bishoprick of Winchester. Like 
most of the West-Saxon Kings about this time, he had much 
fighting with the Mercians, and like all the other Kings both of 
Mercia and Wessex he had much fighting with the Welsh. In 
644 Penda came against him, and drove him for a while out 
of his Kingdom, and it was perhaps now that Gloucestershire 
and some of the other West-Saxon lands north of the Thames 
and Avon became part of Mercia. But, if so, Cenwealh 
partly made up for this loss by a great gain in another quarter. 
You Avill remember that Ceawlin in 577 had conquered 
as far as the Axe. But the Welsh still kept a long narrow 
strip of country reaching from Frome up to Cricklade. Now 
I suppose it was in Cenwealh's time that this strip became 
English, for Cenwealh in 652 fought a battle against the Welsh 
at Bradford-on-Avon. In 658 he fought another battle at the 
hill called Pen or Peonna, and chased the W^elsh as far as the 
river Parret. Now where is the hill called Pen ? It is cer- 
tainly one of our Pens in Somerset, but I do not profess to say 
whether it is, as many people say, Pen Selwood, or whether it 
is Pen Hill, a point of Mendip not very far from where I am 
now writing, or whether it is Pen or Ben Knoll, which is 
nearer still. Pen or Ben in Celtic means '' head," and you 

1 B^da gives the list of the seven Bretwaldas, though, as he writes in 
Latin, without using that name. (ii. 5.) The Chronicle adds Ecgberht. It 
may be that Baeda's list was copied by the Chronicler in the days of 
Ecgberht or one of his immediate descendants, and that, full of the glories 
of Ecgberht, he added his name to the seven in Bseda, but did not know or 
care enough about any King between them, especially of any King out of 
Wessex, to make him put down his name as well. 

F 



66 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

perhaps know that most of the mountains in Scotland are 
called Be7is^ Ben Nevis., Ben Lomond., and so forth; and the 
Welsh name of the mountain which we call the Sugar-Loaf is 
Pen-y-val. These Pens are some of the cases in which Welsh 
names have lingered on through all changes, as they have often 
done in Somersetshire, and still more in Devonshire. It is 
said that the battle at Pen was a very hard one, and that the 
Welsh drove the English back for a while, but then the English 
ralhed and beat the Welsh, and chased them as far as the 
river Parret. You must remember that these Welsh Kings, 
reigning over all Cornv/all and Devonshire and most part of 
Somersetshire, were really very powerful princes, and that their 
dominions were larger than those of some of the English Kings. 
Thus it was a great matter to take from them all the country 
between the Axe and the Parret, which now, or soon after, 
became English. But it would seem that, now that the English 
were Christians, they did not so completely root out or enslave 
the old inhabitants as their heathen forefathers had done, so that 
many of the Welshmen still lived in the land as subjects of the 
West-Saxon Kings. So most likely many of the people in De- 
vonshire and the greater part of Somersetshire are really descen- 
dants of the old Britons, who gradually learned to speak English, 
as we know they did in Cornwall. Amongst other places, Glas- 
tonbury now became English. The Abbey there had been 
founded in the British or Roman times : you will remember 
that, as long as the English were heathens, they destroyed all 
the churches and monasteries that they found in the land ; but 
how that the West-Saxons were Christians, they respected them, 
and we shall find the West-Saxon Kings giving great gifts to 
the church at Glastonbury. Thus it would seem that Glaston- 
bury was the oldest of the great monasteries of England, having 
gone on being a famous church ever since the old British times. 
Of course I do not mean any of the buildings which are standing 
now, for they were built long after, chiefly towards the end 
of the twelfth century. 

I need not tell you the names of all the West-Saxon Kings, 
but you should know that when Cenwealh died in 672, 
he was succeeded by his widow Sexburh. Now it was not 
usual in England or any other Teutonic country to be governed 



THE GROWTH OF WESSEX. 67 

by women, and you will hardly find another case of a Queen 
regnaiit^ in any of the Old-English Kingdoms. Sexburh is 
said to have been a brave and wise woman, but she reigned 
only one year. Some say she died then, others that she was 
driven out. 

The next West-Saxon King whom I need tell you about is 
Ceadwalla, who began to reign in 685. He was of the royal 
house, but he seems to have come to the crown by some kind 
of rebellion against the reigning King Centwine. He had a 
brother called Mul, and, what seems strange, neither of them 
was baptized. Yet Ceadwalla was a believer in Christ, though 
his deeds were not of a very Christian kind. He reigned only 
two years, and spent that time in overrunning Kent, Sussex, 
and the Isle of Wight. But, though he was for the most part 
successful in these wars, yet in one of his inroads into Kent, 
his brother Mul was killed. Now what he did in Wight, as 
Baeda tells the story, is the best worth remembering. I told 
you that the Jutes settled in Wight and part of Hampshire 
as well as in Kent, and they made there a little Kingdom of 
their own, one of those which are not commonly reckoned 
among the seven. And perhaps I should not have said that 
the South-Saxons were the last of all to receive the Gospel, 
because the Jutes in Wight were still heathens in Cead- 
walla's time, some years after Wilfrith had preached to the South- 
Saxons. But the South-Saxons were the last of the seven 
greater Kingdoms and the last people on the mainland of 
England to become Christians. The King of the Jutes in 
Wight at this time was named Anvald. I do not know 
whether Arwald had provoked Ceadwalla in any way, but 
the story reads almost as if Ceadwalla attacked the Jutes 
because they were heathens. He determined to conquer the 
island, to destroy the people, and put men of his own Kingdom 
to live there, and to dedicate a fourth of the land and of the 
prey to the Lord. This was indeed a strange way of spreading 
the Gospel, and very different from anything that the good 
Kings ^thelberht and Oswald had done. It seems that Bishop 

1 That is a Queen reigning in her own right, like a King, as Queen 
Victoria does. A Queen consort is one who is merely the wife of a King, 
like the late Queen Adelaide, the wife of King William the Fourth. 

F 2 



68 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

Wilfrith, whom I before mentioned to you as having converted 
the South-Saxons, heard of this, and came over and did what 
he could for both the souls and the bodies of the people.^ 
Ceadwalla offered him the fourth that he had vowed to the 
Lord. So Wilfrith took a fourth of the land and with it a 
fourth of the people. Now there were in the whole island 
twelve hundred families, so that Wilfrith took three hundred, 
who, as far as we can make out, would otherwise have been 
killed with the rest. These people he put under Beorhtwine 
his sister's son, and left with him a priest named Hiddila, to 
preach to them and baptize them. 

Meanwhile two boys, sons of the King of Wight, had fled 
from the island as Ceadwalla came near, and tried to hide 
themselves on the mainland. For as I just now said, there was 
a little piece of what is now Hampshire where the people wxre 
Jutes as well as in the island, and, though no doubt these 
Jutes were now subjects of Ceadwalla, the boys from the island 
may have thought that it would be easier to hide among people 
of their own race. But they were found out, and Ceadwalla 
ordered them to be put to death. Then a certain Abbot 
named Cyneberht, whose monastery was near to the place, 
went to Ceadwalla and asked that, if he would not spare their 
lives, he would at least let him, Cyneberht, try and make 
Christians of them before they died. So Ceadwalla, though 
he would not spare their lives, yet let Cyneberht teach them. 
So they believed and were baptized, and then Ceadwalla had 
them put to death. 

Now we may suppose that Ceadwalla soon repented of 
all these cruel deeds ; for, when he had reigned only 
two years, he gave up his Kingdom and left England 
altogether, and went to Rome. There he was baptized 
by the Pope Sergius at Easter in the year 689, and 
in his baptism his name was changed from Ceadwalla to 
Peter. In those days men who were baptized wore white 

1 The story as told in Baeda is not very clear, but this seems to be the 
meaning. We first read that Ceadwalla vowed to kill all the people 
(" omnes indigenas exterminare "), and then that Wilfrith received the three 
hundred families. One would think from this that, but for Wilfrith, they 
would have been killed also. 



THE GROWTH OF WESSEX, 69 

garments for a week after their baptism. But Ceadwalla or 
Peter fell sick while he still had his white garments on him, 
and he died at Rome and was buried there in the church of 
Saint Peter. So that he lived hardly longer after his baptism 
than the poor boys, the sons of King Anvald of Wight, had 
lived after theirs. Now after Ceadwalla there reigned in 
Wessex a great King whose name was Ine. He was not the 
son of Ceadwalla, but he was of the royal house of Cerdic, 
as also was JEthelburh his ^\ife. He reigned as much as 
thirty-eight years, from (^%^ to 726. Like all the other Kings, 
he had much to do in the way of fighting, both against the 
Welsh and against the other English Kings, but he also 
found time for other things besides. He put together the 
laws of the West-Saxons so as to make what is called a code^ 
being the oldest West-Saxon laws that we have, though there 
are Kentish laws which are older still, some even as old as the 
days of yEthelberht. Pie also divided the Kingdom of the 
W^est-Saxons into two Bishopricks. Hitherto all Wessex had 
been under the Bishops of Winchester; but now that the 
Kingdom was so much larger, Ine founded another Bishoprick 
at Sherborne in Dorsetshire. This is what is now called the 
Bishoprick of Salisbury, the See having been moved from 
Sherborne in later times. The first Bishop of Sherborne was- 
named Ealdhelm ; he had before been Abbot of Malmesbury 
in Wiltshire; he was a famous man in his time, and wrote 
many books, some of which still remain. There is a headland 
in Dorsetshire, the true name of which is Saint Ealdhelms 
Head, but it has got corrupted into Saint Alban's Head, 
because in later times the name of Saint Alban has been better 
known than that of Saint Ealdhelm. This new Diocese of 
Sherborne took in Wiltshire, Berkshire, Dorsetshire, and so 
much of Somersetshire as was now English ; there was not a 
Bishop at Wells yet. But you \\111 remember that, since the 
wars of Cenwealh, the Enghsh land reached to the Parret, so 
that both Wells and Glastonbury were in Ine's Kingdom. 
You should remember Ine, for it is said that it was he who, 
in 704, first founded Saint Andrew's church in Wells. That, 
you know, is now the cathedral church, but it was not a 
cathedral church then, because there was no Bishop. But 



70 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN, 

there was a College or body of clergy belonging to it, making 
it what is called a collegiate church. And as Glastonbury 
was now in his dominions, Ine did much for the great 
monastery there. King Ine also fought much with the Welsh 
under their King Gerent. Gerent's name is mentioned in the 
Chronicle, which does not often tell us the names of any 
Welsh Kings, and we find that he was a notable man in the 
Welsh history. He seems to have had a good deal of power 
over the Welsh princes in Glamorgan and those parts ; and 
indeed, when Britain was cut up into so many small states, 
it was no small dominion to reign over Cornwall, Devonshire, 
and part of Somersetshire. But Gerent could not have long 
kept much, if any part of Somersetshire, for Ine went on with 
his conquests towards the west, and built the town of Taunton, 
which is beyond the Parret. Taunton was no doubt built as 
a fortress on the frontier, to guard the newly conquered land 
against the Welshmen in Devon. 

King Ine had also much to do in fighting with the other 
English Kings. He fought against the men of Kent, and made 
them pay him much gold as the price of blood for his kinsman 
Mul. This price of blood paid to the kinsfolk of a slain man 
was called by the English and other Teutonic people the 
wergild. He had wars also in Sussex and in East-Anglia, and 
in 714 he fought a great battle with Ceolred King of the Mer- 
cians, in which so many men were killed on both sides that 
they could not tell which side had won, so that it was what is 
called a drawn battle. This happened at Wodnesbeorg or 
Wanborough in Wiltshire, not far from Swindon, where as 
you go by on the railway you may see Wanborough church 
with both a tower and a spire on the top of the hill. 

Towards the end of his reign, Ine seems to have been 
troubled by some rebellions among his own people, and also 
to have been less successful than before in his wars with the 
Welsh. One or two rebellions are mentioned, headed by 
^thelings or men of the royal house, in one of which, while 
Ine was fighting in Sussex, the rebels seized the new town of 
Taunton. But Queen ^Ethelburh went against them and 
burned the town. This was in 722, and Ine reigned only four 
years longer. In 726, like Ceadwalla, he gave up his Kingdom 



THE GROWTH OF WESSEX, 71 

and went to Rome and died there. He must have been getting 
old, and very Hkely he was troubled because the latter end of 
his reign had been less glorious than the beginning. But his 
wife ^Ethelburh is said to have persuaded him to leave the 
world in a curious way which I will tell you, as it is a striking 
story. But I only find it in William of Malmesbury/ Avho wrote 
so long after as the twelfth century, so I do not feel so sure 
that it is true, as if I read it in the Chronicle or in Bseda. So 
here is the story. 

Saijg lihtg |ne farsook 1^^ SSorlir* 

Now King Ine once made him a feast to his lords and great 
men in one of his royal houses ; and the house was hung with 
goodly curtains, and the table was spread with vessels of gold 
and silver, and there were meats and drinks brought from all 
parts of the w^orld, and Ine and his lords ate and drank and 
were merry. Now on the next day Ine set forth from that 
house to go unto another that he had, and ^thelburh his Queen 
went with him. So men took down the curtains and carried off 
the goodly vessels,^ and left the house bare and empty. More- 
over ^thelburh the Queen spake unto the steward who had 
the care of that house, saying, " When the King is gone, fill 
the house with rubbish and with the dung of cattle, and lay in 
the bed where the King slept a sow with her litter of pigs." 
So the steward did as the Queen commanded. So when Ine 
and the Queen had gone forth about a mile from the house, 
the Queen said unto Ine, " Turn back, my lord, to the house; 
whence we have come, for it will be greatly for thy good so to 
do." So Ine hearkened to the voice of his wife and turned 

1 It is not found even in all the copies of William of Malmesbury. 

2 In the days of Ine, and many centuries aiter, Kings and other great 
men often went about from one house to another. There was not much 
money in the land, so that a man could not, as he can now, take rent for his 
lands and spend it where he would, but a man who had several estates 
commonly went and stayed at one till he and his people had eaten up the 
fruits of that estate, and then they went to another, carrying the most part 
of their furniture with them on pack-horses. That the curtains and vessels 
were taken away is not distinctly said, but it seems implied in the story, 
and it is according to the custom of the time. 



72 OLD ENGLISH HISTOR Y FOR CHILDREN. 

back unto the house. So he found all the curtains and the 
goodly vessels gone, and the house full of rubbish and made 
foul with the dung of cattle, and a sow and her pigs lying in 
the bed where Ine and ^thelburh his Queen had slept. So 
JEthelburh spake unto Ine her husband saying, " Seest thou, O 
King, how the pomp of this world passeth away ? Where are 
now all the goodly things, the curtains, and the vessels, and 
the meats and drinks brought from all parts of the earth, 
wherewith thou and thy lords held your feast yesterday ? How 
foul is now the house which but yesterday was goodly and fit 
for a King. How foul a beast lieth in the bed where a King 
and Queen slept only the last night. Are not all the things of 
this life a breath, yea smoke, and a wind that passeth away ? Are 
they not a river that runneth by, and no man seeth the water 
any more ? Woe then to them that cleave to the things of this 
life only. Seest thou not how our very flesh, which is nourished 
by these good things, shall pass away ? And shall not we, who 
have more power and wealth than others, have worse punish- 
ment than others, if we cleave to the things of this life only? 
Have I not often bidden thee to think on these things ? Thou 
growest old, and the time is short. Wilt thou not lay aside thy 
Kingdom and all the things of this life, and go as a pilgrim to 
the threshold of the Apostles in the great city of Rome, and 
there serve God the rest of the days that He shall give thee?" 
So King Ine hearkened to the voice of ^thelburh his wife, and 
he laid aside his Kingdom, and ^thelheard his kinsman, the 
brother of JEthelburh his wife, reigned in his stead. So Ine 
and ^thelburh went to Rome to the threshold of the Apostles, 
and Gregory^ the Pope received them gladly. Now Ine lived 
no more as a King, yet would he not make a show in the eyes 
of men by shaving his head as monks do ; but he dwelt at 
Rome as a common man for the rest of his days, and ^thel- 
burh his wife dwelt with him. 



Several things happened in other parts of England while 
these Kings reigned in Wessex, which it may be as well to 

1 That is Pope Gregory the Second. Gregory the Great, of whom you 
heard before, had been dead more than a hundred years. 



THE GROWTH OF WESSEX. ' 73 

mention. It was in Ine's time, in 690, that the first English- 
man became Archbishop ; this was Beorhtwald or Brihtwold, 
Archbishop of Canterbury ; for Wilfrith, though he w^as Bishop 
of York, does not seem to have been called Archbishop. Up to 
this time all the Archbishops of Canterbury had been Romans, 
at least subjects of the Roman Empire; for the Archbishop 
before Beorhtwald, Theodore by name, came from Tarsus in 
Cilicia, the same town as Saint Paul, so that his native tongue 
was Greek. This Theodore did much for the English Church 
in many ways ; but by this time the English Church had, so to 
speak, outgrown its childhood, so that it was time to put a man 
born in the land at its head. And so after Theodore all the 
Archbishops of Canterbury were Englishmen^ for about three 
hundred and fifty years, till the time of Edward the Confessor. 

It was also during this time that the EngUsh missionaries 
began to go into different parts of Germany to convert those 
of their brethren who were still heathens. Such was Willibrord 
who preached to the Frisians, and founded the Bishoprick of 
Utrecht ; the Frisians are the people whose language comes 
nearer to English than that of any other people on the Conti- 
nent. Such too was Boniface or Winfrith, of whom I spoke to 
you before as being the first Archbishop of Mainz, and called 
the Apostle of Germany. The English missionaries w^ere much 
helped in their good works by the Dukes and Kings of the 
Franks, who were now the ruling people of Germany and Gaul, 
and of whom you will hear more presently. 

There were also many good men in different parts of 
England who did much good in writing books and building 
churches, and generally in making men more Christian and 
civilized. Bishop Wilfrith was one of them, though he often got 
into trouble, especially because he was too fond of the Pope. 
For though all people in England acknowledged the Bishop 
of Rome as the chief Bishop of the West, yet they did not 
wish to have him altogether for lord over them, and Wilfrith 
was often ready to set up the Pope's authority in a w^ay to 
which Englishmen in general could not agree. There was 

1 Oda in the tenth century was no doubt, strictly speaking, a Dane, but 
we may count Englishmen and Danes as all one, as distinguished from 
Rom.ans and Frenchmen. 



74 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN, 

also one Benedict, called Biscop, Abbot of Wearmoutli in 
Northumberland, who did much to improve the art of building 
in England, especially by first putting glass in the windows. 
There was Caedmon, the first Christian poet in England, 
whose verses remind one much of Milton's Paradise Lost. 
There was our own Bishop Ealdhelm at Sherborne, and above 
all there was Venerable Baeda, whom we have to thank for so 
much of our knowledge of these times. He was born in 672 
and died in 734, so that for all the time we have been lately 
talking about he was what is called a contemporary writer. 
He could know about Ine, and even a little about Caedwalla, 
for himself; and about Cenwealh he could hear from people 
who remembered him. But as he lived all his life in Northum- 
berland, he does not tell us quite so much about our West- 
Saxon Kings as we sometimes might wish. His greatest work 
is called Historia Ecclesiastica Geittis Anglorti7n, that is, 
Ecclesiastical History of the People of the English. I have 
generally had it by me while I have been writing my story. All 
his works were written in Latin, but King Alfred afterwards 
translated some of them into English. 



PART II. 

After Ine was gone away the Kingdom of the West-Saxons 
seems for a while not to have flourished so much as it had 
lately done. You will remember that when Ine went to Rome, 
his wife's brother JEthelheard reigned instead of him. Perhaps 
this choice did not please all his people, for we read of an 
^theling named Oswald,^ a descendant of Ceawlin, who fought 
against ^thelheard the very year that Ine went away. But two 
years after, in 730, Oswald died. The Welsh too seem to have 
recovered something of what they had lost, and there was also 
war with the Mercians. There was now in Mercia a very 

1 It is unusual to find Oswald, a purely Northumbrian name, in Wessex. 
Perhaps he was called in honour of Saint Oswald. Though some names 
were common to the whole nation, others belong only to particular King- 
doms or families, and those which begin with Os- are much less common in 
Wessex than in Northumberland. 



THE GROWTH OT WESSEX. 75 

powerful King named ^thelbald. In 733 he invaded Wessex, 
and got as far as Somerton. That, you know, is but a small 
town now, but it was then the capital of the Sumorscptas^ 
whence we have the name of Somersetslm-e. ^thelbald 
besieged and took Somerton, and brought all Wessex and all 
England south of the Humber into his power. ^ 

In 740 ^thelheard died. Either he was very weak or very 
unlucky, for certainly things went on very ill in his time. His 
successor Cuthred did much better. He too had to struggle 
against both the Welsh and the Mercians, but he contrived 
never to have to fight against both at once. In some of his 
wars the Welsh helped him against the Mercians, and in others 
the Mercians helped him against the Welsh. Now he must 
have been a very clever man to have managed that. In 750 
he was troubled by a rebellion at home, but he contrived to 
gain something even out of that. There was one ^thelhun 
'^the proud Alderman," with whom he had a battle, in which 
^thelhun was defeated and wounded. Now many Kmgs ot 
those times would have taken some fearful vengeance on 
^thelhun for this rebellion. Cuthred however seems to have 
forgiven him, and to have quite won his heart by his forgive- 
ness. For, two years afterwards, Cuthred and his people could 
no longer bear the yoke of the Mercians, so Cuthred fought 
against ^thelbald in a great battle at Burford in Oxfordshire, 
not far from the borders of the two kingdoms. Now the 
West-Saxons won this battle, and the victory is said to have 
been greatly owing to the bravery of ^thelhun, who was the 
King's standard-bearer, a^nd bore the royal ensign. The royal 
ensign of the West-Saxons was a golden dragon, and you will 
hear of the Dragon of Wessex in many battles that are to 

1 Scetas is the same as settlers (connected with sit^ the Latin seder e^ 
&c. ), those who settled in any particular part of the country. The word 
is still preserved in the name Dorj-^^shire, as well as Somer^^/shire ; 
but in the case of the ^'Ascetas and V>^iviS(Btas (the people of Wiltshire and 
Devonshire) and the yi2.<g^scetas^ who lived in Herefordshire, it is gone 
out of use. We get the same form in Ylsass {s in the High-Dutch 
answering to / in English), the part of Germany which has been joined 
to France, and which Frenchmen call Alsace. 

^ Some however think that the Somerton which .^Ethelbald took was 
not our Somerton, but Somerton in Oxfordshire, 



76 OLD ENGLISH HIS TOR V FOR CHILDREN, 

come, ^thelhun and the West-Saxons fought so well that 
King ^thelbald fled, and three years after, in 755, he was killed, 
perhaps in another battle.^ From that time the Kingdom of 
Wessex grew and prospered, and was never again in bondage, 
yet we shall see that for a good while Mercia remained very 
powerful. 

King Cuthred did not live to see the death of his enemy 
^thelbald, as he died the year before him, in 754. He was 
succeeded by his kinsman Sigeberht ; but Sigeberht reigned 
ill, so the Witan, the Wise Men, the Council or Parliament of 
the land, took his Kingdom from him and gave it to another 
kinsman named Cynewulf I would have you mark this well, 
as showing that our forefathers were always a free people, and 
that from the beginning the Witan could choose their own 
King and could take his Kingdom from him if he reigned badly. 
You will find that our Parliaments continued to do this when 
it was needful, many hundred years after the time of Sige- 
berht. This was in 755, the year of ^thelbald's death. So 
Cynewulf was King of the West-Saxons, but Sigeberht was 
allowed to reign as Under-king of Hampshire. But after a 
while he killed one C umbra, his Alderman, for giving him 
good counsel. So Cynewulf drove him quite away into the 
great wood of Andered in Sussex, where he was afterwards 
killed by a servant of Cumbra's. Cynewulf reigned a long 
time, and won many battles over the Welsh. But I must now 
tell you a little about some things which happened in other 
parts of Britain. 

There is very little that I need tell you about the Kingdom 
of Northumberland in these times, but there is one thing which 
happened there which you should remember. There was a 
great King in that country called Eadberht, under whom 
Northumberland flourished greatly. Among other things, 

^ The Chronicle and Florence of Worcester mention that ^thelbald was 
killed in 755, but they do not say how. It is Henry of Huntingdon who 
says that he was killed in a battle with the West- Saxons. Henry did not 
write till long after, in the twelfth century ; but he seems to have had books 
before him, or perhaps only songs, which we have not got now. But 
another late, though very good, writer, Simeon of Durham, says that he 
was killed by some of his own people. 



THE GROWTH OF WESSEX, 77 

Eadberht made an alliance with the King of the PIcts in 
Scotland, whose name was Unust, and the two together made 
war on the Welsh in Strathclyde, and took their chief town ot 
Alcluyd, near Dunbarton.i This was in 756. This is well 
worth marking, because it seems to have been now that the 
Kingdom of Strathclyde first became subject to Northumber- 
land. Thus you see that now, three hundred years after the 
first coming of the English, the Welsh still held out against 
them in three parts, forming nearly the whole of the west side 
of the island. I mean in Strathclyde, in what is now Wales, 
which was then called North Whales ; and in West Wales, that 
is in Cornwall, Devon, and Somerset. Eadberht got great 
fame by this conquest, so much so that Pippin, .the great King 
of the Franks, made a friendship with him, and sent ambas- 
sadors with rich gifts. But after a while Eadberht, like so 
many other Kings about this time, gave up his Kingdom, 
and after him Northumberland did not prosper at all. There 
were great quarrrlings and confusions among different Kings 
and Aldermen, so that Northumberland soon became of no 
account at all, which made it the more easy for the Danes 
first to plunder and then to settle in that part of England, 
which I shall tell you more about presently. 

I must now tell you something about Mercia, as some very 
notable Kings reigned there during the time that we have been 
talking about, and for some time things looked as if Mercia, 
and not Wessex, was going to be the head Kingdom ot 
England. You have already heard of ^thelbald, and how 
for a time he held not only the smaller Kingdoms in subjection, 
but also Wessex itself He tried to conquer Northumberland, 
but there Eadberht was too strong for him. But he calls him- 
self in a Charter,^ " King, not only of the Mercians, but of 
all the provinces which by a general name are called the 
South-Enghsh," that is, I suppose, all except Northumberland. 
And at the end he even goes so far as to call himself '' Rex 

1 This is not in the Chronicle, but in Simeon of Durham, who is very 
good authority for Northumbrian matter?. 

^ Its date is 736. The Latin words are " Rex non solum Mercensium sed 
et omnium provinciarum quae generale [generaU] nomine Sutangh dicuntur." 
See Kemble's Charters, i. 96. 



78 OLD ENGLISH HIS TOR V FOR CHILDREN, 

Britanniae " or ^' King of Britain." But you know that this 
greatness did not last, as I have told you how he was defeated 
by the West-Saxons at Burford in 752, and how he was killed 
three years afterwards. This King ^thelbald founded the 
great Abbey of Crowland in Holland. You know I do not 
mean Holland over the sea, but Holland in Lincolnshire. 
Both countries, I suppose, are so called because they are so low 
and flat, as if one should say hollow laiid. 

A little while after ^thelbald there reigned a still more 
famous King in Mercia whose name was Offa. He founded 
St. Alban's Abbey ; so the monks of that house had a great 
deal to tell about him, and some very strange things they told. 
I will tell you one story, but remember that it is a mere legend, 
which I do not wish you to believe. 



There was once a King who reigned over the Angles,^ whose 
name was Wsermund. He had but one son, whose name was 
Offa ; he was a tall youth and fair, but he was dumb. More- 
over he had been born blind, and saw nothing till he was of 
the age of seven years. Now when King Waermund grew old 
and Offa his son was about thirty years old, men began to say, 
'^ Lo, Wsermund is old, and will soon die, and Offa his son 
is dumb ; how can a dumb man reign over the people of the 
Angles?" Now there was one of the nobles of the Angles 
whose name was Rigan. And Rigan went to King Waermund 
and said, " O King, thou art old, and thou hast no son save 
this Offa who is dumb, and a dumb man cannot reign over 

1 This story is told both by Enghsh and by Danish writers, and no 
doubt it is one of many old stories which are common to all the Teutonic 
nations. Or perhaps I should say that it is common to all the world, for 
you will easily see how like this story is to the tale of Croesus and his son 
in Herodotus. But while the Danish writers make Waermund to have been 
a King of the Angles in their old country before they came into Britain, the 
English writers make him a King of the Angles in Britain. No doubt the 
story is one of those which the English brought with them, and for which 
they sometimes found a place in their new land ; I have therefore simply 
spoken of the "Angles," without saying where they lived. 



THE GROWTH OF WESSEX. 79 

the people of the Angles. Now behold me here, and choose 
me, that I may be unto thee as another son while thou livest, 
and that when thou diest I may be thine heir and reign in thy 
stead." But King Waermund said to Rigan, ^^ Thou shalt not 
be my son, neither mil I give my Kingdom for thee to reign 
over." So Rigan gathered himself together an host to fight 
against King W^rmund. Then King AVaermund gathered 
together his Aldermen and his Thanes and all his wise men, 
and said unto them, " What shall we do, seeing Rigan cometh 
with an host to fight against us?" And they made a truce 
with Rigan, so that he and certain of his captains came and 
spake with the King and his wise men. And they sat for 
many days doubting what they should do, and one spake on 
this manner and another spake on that manner. For they 
would not that a dumb man should reign over them, and yet it 
pleased them not to cast aside the royal house which had so 
long reigned over the people of the Angles. Now on the last 
day Offa, the King's son, came and sat among the wise men. 
For though he was dumb, yet could he hear and understand 
the words that men spake. So when he heard men say that 
he was not fit to reign over the people of the Angles, it grieved 
him to the heart, and he wept. And when he w^as greatly 
moved, lo, the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake 
among the wise men and said, ''This now is wickedness, that 
any man should seek to drive me out of the sea.t of my fathers, 
so that a stranger should reign instead of me over the people 
of the Angles. Who is this Rigan that he should rise up 
against his lord the King and come with an host to fight against 
him ? Now therefore, if he will stand up against me to battle, 
I will smite him and all that abide with him, but all that will 
abide with me and fight against him them ^\ill I greatly honour." 
So all men greatly wondered when they heard the dumb speak, 
and saw that he whom they despised had a strong heart within 
him. And the more part of them that had followed Rigan 
were afraid and went forth. But Rigan tarried yet awhile, and 
defied 1 the King and his son, and then went forth also. Then 
the wise men said to the King, " O King, thy son is of age 

^ Diffidiiciavit. This is a technical term of feudal law, and implies re- 
nouncing of all allegiance. 



8o OLD ENGLISH HISTOR V FOR CHILDREN 

and hath a stout heart ; let him be girded with the belt^ of a 
man of war, and let him lead us forth to battle against Rigan 
and them that are with him." 

So Offa was girded with the belt of a man of war, and he 
went forth to fight against Rigan and his host. Now Rigan 
had two sons ; the name of the elder was Hildebrand, and the 
name of the younger was Swegen. And Hildebrand came forth 
to fight against Offa, but Offa smote him that he died. And 
when Swegen came to help his brother, Offa smote him also that 
he died. So when Rigan saw that both his sons were dead, he 
fled, and was drowned in crossing a certain river. So Offa 
returned to Wsermund his father with great joy. And Wsermund 
gave up his Kingdom to his son, and Offa reigned over the 
people of the Angles for many winters, and all the Kings that 
were round about honoured him. 

Now after many years there was a man of the Angles who 
dwelt in Mercia, whose name was Thingferth, and he was of 
the seed royal of the Mercians, and he was an. Alderman under 
his kinsman the King. Now Thingferth had but one son, whose 
name was Winfrith. And the child was lame, blind, and deaf 
from his birth ; so that his parents had great sorrow of heart. 
So they made a vow to God that, if He would of His mercy 
make the child whole, they would build a goodly monastery to 
His honour. Now after a while there arose in Mercia a King 
named Beornred, who was not of the seed royal. Wherefore 
he sought to slay all that were kinsfolk of the Kings that had 
reigned before him. And when Thingferth heard this, he fled, 
and his wife with him. But the lad Winfrith was left behind, 
for Beornred sought not to slay him ; for he counted that one 
who was deaf and blind and lame should never trouble liis 
Kingdom. And when Winfrith was left alone, God had pity 
on him, and He opened his eyes and he saw. Then he stretched 
forth his limbs and walked. Lastly his ears were opened, and 
he essayed to speak and he spake plain. And he grew and 
waxed strong and became a mighty man of valour. Then men 
said, '^ Lo, this youth is like Offa in the old time, who spake 
not till Rigan came to fight against Waermund his father." So 

^ The older ceremony, from which the later rites of making a knight 
seem to have been derived. 



THE GROWTH OF WESSEX. 8i 

his name was no longer called Winfrith, but Offa. And all 
men that hated Beornred and loved the house of the old Kings, 
gathered themselves unto Offa, and he became their captain. 

Now Beornred heard that Winfrith lived and had waxed 
mighty, and that men no longer called him Winfrith but Offa, 
and it grieved him sore, and he repented that he had spared 
Winfrith and had not slain him when he sought to slay the 
house of his father. So Beornred gathered him an host to 
fight against Offa and the men that were with him. And when 
Offa heard of it, he gathered together all his friends and all the 
men that followed him, even a great host, and went forth to the 
battle against Beornred. And the battle waxed very sore, but 
towards eventide Beornred was smitten that he died, and they 
that were Vv^ith him fled, and were scattered every man to his 
own home. Then all men came to Offa and said, " Lo, thou 
hast vanquished Beornred the tyrant, and thou art of the house 
of our old Kings. Reign thou therefore over us, and we will 
serve thee and follow thee whithersoever thou lead est us." So 
they set the crown royal upon his head, and he reigned over all 
the people of the Angles that dwelt in Mercia. He sent for 
his parents back into the land, and when they died he buried 
them with great honour. So Offa was King, and he waxed 
mighty, and he smote the Welsh ofttimes, and he warred mightily 
with the other Kings of the Angks and Saxons that were in 
Britain. Moreover he made a league with Charles the King of 
the Franks, for that they two were the mightiest of all the 
Kmgs that dwelt in the western lands. Moreover he forgot 
not his father's vow, but he built a goodly minster and caused 
monks to serve God therein. And he called it by the name of 
Alban, who was the first martyr of Christ in the isle of Britain 
in the old time when the Romans dwelt therein. And he built 
the minster hard by the town of Verulam, where Alban had 
died. And men came to dwell round about the minster, so 
that there was a new town, and men called the name of that 
town no longer Verulam but Saint Albans. 

And Offa reigned thirty-nine winters, and he died, and they 
buried him in a chapel by the river of Ouse, hard by the town 
of Bedford. But there was a great flood in the river which 
swept away the chapel and the tomb and the body of the great 

G 



82 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

King Offa, so that no man knoweth where he lieth to this 
day. 

I must now tell you something of the real history of Offa. 
There is no doubt that, after the death of ^thelbald, the 
Kingdom of Mercia was held for a short time by one Beornred, 
who seems not to have been of the royal house. And there is 
no doubt that he was driven out by Offa the son of Thingferth, 
who was of the royal house, though not a son, or seemingly any 
very near kinsman, of the last King. Most likely it was only 
his name Offa and his driving out the usurper which made men 
think of the old stories about the hero Offa.^ He seems to 
have been Alderman or Under-king of the Hwiccas (that is, 
you will remember, the people of Gloucester, Worcester, and part 
of Warwick^); but in 755, after he had driven out Beornred, 
he became King over all Mercia, and reigned thirty-nine years, 
till 794. Under him Mercia became the first power in Britain. 
He had a good deal of fighting with the other English states, 
both with the Kentish men and with the West-Saxons, and in 
777 he defeated Cynewulf of Wessex, and took from him the 
town of Bensington on the Thames, just opposite W^alHngford. 
I suppose it was now that Oxfordshire became Mercian instead 
of West-Saxon. But Offa is much more famous for his wars with 
the Welsh. Up to his time the Severn had been the boundary 
between the English and Welsh in this part of Britain. But 
Offa conquered a great deal of the Welsh country called Powys, 
which lies west of the Severn, and took the chief town, which 
was called Pen-y-wern, but which now became an English town 
by the name of Scrobbesbyrig or Shrewsbury. And to keep his 
new land safe, he made a great dyke from the mouth of the Wye 
to the mouth of the Dee, of which some remains are left still, 
and which is still called Offa's Dyke. This was doing very much 

1 In the pedigree in the Chronicle the real Offa comes in the twelfth 
generation from Offa the hero, and Offa the hero comes in the third place 
from Woden, from whom all the Kings of the Angles and Saxons professed 
to be descended. 

^ That is, the old Diocese of Worcester, before Henry the Eighth 
fomided the sees of Gloucester and Bristol. The Bishop's Dioceses are 
generally the best guide to the boundaries of the old principalities. 



THE GROWTHOF WES SEX. 83 

the same as Hadrian and Severus had done long before, when 
they built the great Roman wall. But Offa's Dyke answered 
much better than the Ro-man wall, and it became the boundary 
of England and Wales, a boundary which has not changed 
very much from Offa's time till now. 

And now I must tell you of a great change which Offa made 
in the Church, though it lasted only a little while. As Offa 
w^as the most powerful King in England, and especially as he 
had defeated the Kentishmen, he did not like the Church of 
Mercia to be subject to the Archbishop of Canterbury, but he 
wished to have an Archbishop of his own in his own Kingdom. 
So he held a Council in 786, and got leave from Pope Hadrian 
to make Lichfield an Archbishop's see, and for the Archbishop 
of Lichfield to be the head Bishop of all Mercia and East- 
Anglia. But this did not last long, for, as soon as Offa was 
dead, the next Archbishop of Canterbury persuaded the Pope 
-another Pope, named Leo — to take away the Archbishoprick 
of Lichfield, and to give back to Canterbury all that it had 
before. So there w^as one Archbishop of Lichfield, and only 
one. His name was Ealdwulf. 

Thus you see King Offa was well know^n even out of our own 
island. I told you before that Eadberht of Northumberland 
had some dealings with Pippin King of the Franks, and now 
Offa had a great deal to do with Pippin's son, Charles the 
Great. This Charles is perhaps the most famous man in all 
history since the old times of the Greeks and Romans. He 
did many wonderful things both in peace and in war. He 
conquered the Saxons, I do not mean our Saxons in Britain, 
but the Old-Saxons in Germany, who till then were heathens 
and who often had wars with the Franks, So w^e may call him 
the first King of all Germany. And he was the first man of 
any Teutonic nation who was called Roman Emperor. You 
know that the Emperors had for a long time lived at Constan- 
tinople or New Rome, and they had for some while been 
gradually losing their power in Italy. Part of the country had 
been conquered by a Teutonic people called the Lombards, and 
in Rome itself the Popes were gradually getting to themselves 
the chief power. The Popes too, and the Romans generally, 
had a great deal of disputing with the Emperors on religious 

G 2 



84 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

matters, because several of the Emperors wished to take 
away all images and pictures out of the churches, which 
the Popes did not wish to have done. There was a great 
deal of trouble about this matter during the whole of the 
eighth and ninth centuries, though we hear little about it in 
England. King Charles held a Council about it, and he and 
his Bishops agreed that it was lawful to have pictures and 
images, but that it was wrong to worship them. But the end 
of the matter was that the Emperors lost the greater part of 
their dominions in Italy ; and though Rome still belonged 
to them in name, yet it was in name only. The Popes sent 
for the Kings of the Franks to help them both against the 
Emperors and against the Lombards. So both Pippin and 
Charles ruled at Rome, only they were called Patrician, and 
not King or Emperor. Charles indeed conquered the Lom- 
bards altogether, and joined their Kingdom to that of the 
Franks. So he ruled over all Germany and Gaul and part 
of Spain and Italy, and most of the nations to the east of 
Germany were more or less tributary to him. But he did 
many things besides fighting, for he made many laws, and 
greatly encouraged learning, and loved to have learned men 
about him, one of the chief of whom was called Ealhwine 
or Alcuin, an Englishman. Perhaps you will be surprised 
when I tell you that this great and wise King could not write. 
No doubt he could read, but he was not taught to write in 
his youth ; he tried to learn when he was grown up, but he 
could not manage it. You know that writing was a more diffi- 
cult business then than it is nov/, and few people in the West 
could write besides clergymen, and not all of them. But 
you must not fancy that because people could not write, it 
always follows that they could not read. 

Now at last the people of Rome got tired of having 
anything to do with the Emperors at Constantinople. Just 
at the end of the eighth century the Emperor Constantine 
the Sixth was deposed by his own mother Eirene, who put 
out his eyes and reigned herself Then Pope Leo and the 
Romans said that a woman could not be Csesar and Augustus, 
and they said that the Old Rome had as much right to choose 
an Emperor as the New. So they chose King Charles their 



THE GROWTH OT WESSEX. 85 

Patrician to be Emperor, and he was crowned at Rome by 
Pope Leo on Christmas Day in the year 800, by the name 
of Charles Augustus, Emperor of the Romans. And it was 
held for a thousand years after, down to the year 1806,^ that 
the King of the Franks, or as he was afterwards called the King 
of Germany, had a right to be crowned by the Pope at Rome, 
and to be called Emperor of the Romans. But the Emperors 
at Constantinople still went on, and they too still called them- 
selves Emperors of the Romans till the New Rome was taken 
by the Turks in 1453. Thus from 800 to 1453 there were two 
Emperors, one in the East and one in the West,^ both calling 
themselves Roman Emperors, though the one was really a 
German and the other really a Greek.^ Always remember 
that Charles the Great was a German, and spoke German, 
and lived mostly at AqiicEg7^ani or Aachen,^ where he was 
buried. I tell you this because people often fancy that because 
he was King of the Franks, he must have been a French- 
man. But there was no such thing as yet as a French nation 
or language. Charles, Emperor of the Romans and King of 
the Franks and Lombards, spoke Latin and German ; he 
understood Greek also, but he could not speak it. 

King Charles, as I told you, was not crowned Emperor till 
the year 800, that is, not till after Offa was dead, so that, while 
Offa had anything to do with him, he was only King of the 
Franks and Lombards and Patrician of the Romans. But I 
thought it right to give you at once a little sketch of so famous 

1 In that year the Emperor Francis the Second, who was also King of 
Hungary and Archduke of Austria, resigned the Roman Empire and the 
Kingdom of Germany. Since then no Emperor has been chosen, but the 
Kings of Hungary have called themselves Emperors of Austria, as if 
our Queen should call herself Empress of Kent. 

^ There was not always actually an Emperor in the West, because some 
Kings of Germany v/ere never crowned Emperors at all. But there was 
always either an Emperor or else a King who had a right to become 
Emperor, if he could get to Rome and be crowned. 

^ For a while, in the thirteenth century, there were Latin or French 
Emperors reigning at Constantinople, but the Greeks got the city back 
again ; and while the French were at Constantinople, Greek Emperors still 
reigned at Niccea and elsewhere. 

^ Called in French Aix-la-chapelle^ but it is a pity to call German towns 
by French names. 



S6 OLD ENGLISH ILLS TOR V FOR CHILDREN, 

a man, and one about whom people generally make so many 
mistakes, and we shall hear again of the Emperor Charles 
before we have done. Charles and Offa exchanged letters and 
gifts more than once, and gave each other's subjects various 
rights in each other's dominions. And in one of these letters 
Charles calls himself the most powerful of the Kings of the East, 
and Offa the most powerful of the Kings of the West. This 
sounds rather odd, as Offa was rather a King of the North, and 
one would have thought that the most powerful of the Kings of 
the East was the Emperor at Constantinople and that the most 
powerful of the Kings of the West was Charles himself. So 
Charles and Offa were for the most part very good friends, but 
they are said to have once had a quarrel in wdiich neither 
Charles nor Offa seems to have acted very wisely. For when 
Charles asked Offa to give one of his daughters in marriage to 
his son Charles, Offa said he would do so only if Charles 
would give his own favourite daughter to Offa's son Ecgfrith. 
This made Charles angry, for he did not Vv-^ish to part with 
his daughter, and perhaps he may after all have thought 
himself so much greater than Offa that he did not like to give 
his daughter to Offa's son. But Alcuin and other wise men 
reconciled the two Kings before any harm was done, but it 
does not seem that either of the marriages took place. 

Offa is spoken of as being a man in many things not unlike 
Charles the Great himself For besides all his fightings and 
conquests, he took care of other things, encouraging learning 
and making laws for his people. But I am sorry to say that 
he was guilty of one very great crime towards the end of his 
days. In the year 792 it had been settled that /Ethelberht, 
King of the East Angles, should marry Offa's daughter ^thel- 
thryth, but when he came to fetch away his bride, he was 
murdered in the King's court. Most writers say that this was 
done by Offa's own order,^ or at any rate by that of his Queen 
Cynethryth. If so, Cynethryth acted very like Jezebel and 
Offa very like Ahab ; for even if he did not himself order 
^thelberht's death, he at least took advantage of it to seize on 

^ The Chronicle says only that Offa had yEthelberht's head struck off, 
without any further account. 



THE GROWTH OF WESSEX, %J 

his Kingdom. As usual, he built churches and monasteries to 
atone for his wickedness, especially at Hereford, where JEthel- 
berht was buried.^ Some say that he went on a pilgrimage to 
Rome ; at any rate he gave much to churches at Rome and 
especially to the English school there. 

OfFa died in 794. In 785 he had his son Ecgfrith hallowed 
as King along with him ; but Ecgfrith reigned only a few 
months after his father was dead. After him reigned Cenwulf, 
whose reign was as prosperous as Offa's. He fought much 
against the Welsh and followed them as far as Snowdon. He 
had also wars with the Kentishmen and took their King Ead- 
berht Pren prisoner, but afterwards let him go free. He died 
in 819, and, as far as I can see from the Chronicle, he was 
succeeded by his brother Ceolwulf ; but some tell a story here, 
which I may as well tell you.^ 



Vi^t Starg of Smnt |ietttlm i\t X\\i\i |iiitg. 

When King Cenwulf died, he left only one son, whose 
name was Cenhelm, or, as we now wTite it, Kenelm. He was 
but a child of seven years, yet men set him on the throne of 
his father and called him King of the Mercians. Now King 
Cenwulf had left a daughter, whose name was Cwenthryth. 
And Cwenthryth envied her little brother, and she hoped that, if 
he were dead, the people of the Tslercians would choose her to 

^ zEtlielberht was looked on as a saint, and was held of great account 
both at Hereford and in his own kingdom. The cathedral church of Here- 
ford was called Saint ^^thelberht's minster, and his name is given to one 
of the great gateways leading to the cathedral at Xorsvich. That anything 
should be called after ^thelberht at Norwich shows that he was much 
thought of long after, for the church of Norwich was not founded till the 
eleventh century. 

2 The Chronicle has no mention of Cenhelm at all, and makes Ceolwulf 
succeed Cenwulf at once. But the stoiy is found in Florence of Worcester, 
whom we generally believe next to the Chronicle. It is hard to see what 
should have made anybody invent such a tale, if nothing of the kind had 
ever happened. Yet it is a very unlikely story. For it was not the custom 
of the English then to choose either children or women to reign over 
them, so that, if Cenwulf left only a daughter and a young son, it is next 
to certain that his brother Ceolwulf would have been chosen King. 



88 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

be Queen of the land. So Cwenthryth spake to ^sceberht, 
who had the care of the little King, and gave him gifts, and 
said, " Slay me my brother, that I may reign." So ^sceberht 
hearkened unto the voice of Cwenthryth, and he took his lord, 
even Cenhelm the little King, and led him into a wood and 
slew him, and hid his body in a thicket. Now the same hour 
men were praying at Rome in the church of Saint Peter. And 
lo, a white dove flew into the church with a letter, and lighted 
upon the high altar. And men took the letter from the dove 
and tried to read it, but they could not, because it v/as not 
written in the Latin tongue. And when many had tried to read 
the letter, at last one took it and read it,for he was an Englishman 
and he found that the letter was written in the English tongue. 
And the letter said how that Cenhelm the little King of the Mer- 
cians was slain and his body was hid in a thicket. So men told 
the Pope of this great wonder, and of what things were written in 
the letter which was brought by the white dove. So the Pope 
wrote letters to all the Kings of the English that were in 
Britain, and told them what an evil deed was done in their 
land. So men went forth to seek for the body of Cenhelm 
the little King. And as they Avent they saw a pillar of light 
shining over a thicket, and in the thicket they found the 
body of Cenhelm the little King. So they carried his body to 
Winchelcombe in the land of the Hwiccas, and buried it there 
in the minster. For they deemed that Cenhelm was an holy 
child, and they knew that he had been wickedly slain by the 
guile of his sister Cwenthryth. But over the place where they 
found his body, they built a chapel, and it is called Saint 
Kenelm's Chapel ^ unto this day. 



Now, however this may be about the little King Cenhelm, it 
is certain that the next King of the Mercians was Ceolwulf the 
brother of Cenwulf But two years afterwards he was driven, 
out by one Beornwulf, and, after that, Mercia was of very little 
account. In the time of Offa and Cenwulf, it seemed as 
if Mercia was going to be the head Kingdom of all Britain. 
But so it was not to be. So I will now go a little way back, 
^ Near Hales Owen in Shropshire. 



THE GROWTH OF IVESSEX. 89 

and tell you some more about the Kings of the West-Saxons. 
For we are now drawing near to the days of Ecgberht the great 
Bretw^alda, who first made the Kings of the West-Saxons to be 
lords over all the land of the Eno-lish. 



PART III. 

The last King of the West-Saxons whom I told you of was 
Cynewulf He w^as killed in 784 by the ^theling Cyneheard, a 
brother of the deposed King Sigeberht, and the Chronicle tells 
the story of his death at greater length than usual. ^ Cyne^vulf 
had ordered Cyneheard to go into banishment, but, instead of 
going, he gathered a band of men and plainly wished to make 
himself Kmg. Now one day he heard that King Cynewulf 
w^as gone to visit a lady at Merton in Surrey, and had only a 
few men with him. So Cyneheard came with his men and 
beset the house where the King was. The King then w^ent to 
the door, and fought for his life, and when he saw the ^thehng 
Cyneheard, he smote at him and wounded him, but the 
^theling's men pressed upon the King and slew him. But by 
this time there was a noise made, and the King's men came 
running to help him. And the ^theHng offered them great 
gifts, if they would follow him, but they hearkened not to him, 
but fought against him till they were all slain, save one, a Welsh 
hostage, and he w^as wounded. So Cyneheard the JEtheling 
seized the town of Merton and locked the gates. But in the 
morning came Osric the x\lderman and Wigferth the King's 
Thane and many other of the King's men. And they tried to 
break the gate. Then came Cyneheard the ^theling and spake 
boldly to them and said, '' Let me be your King and reign over 
you, and I will give you broad lands and much gold. Ye see that 
Cynewulf is dead, and ye know that I am of the seed royal. 
Moreover there are with me many of your kinsfolk and near 
friends, who have sworn to follow me and to live and die with 
me." But Osric the Alderman and the men that were wath 
him answered and said unto Cyneheard the ^Etheling : " Of 

-'• It is not however told in the right place, but long before, under the 
year 755, when Cynewulf began to reign. 



90 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN, 

a truth our kinsfolk are dear unto us, but no man is so dear unto 
us as our lord the King, whom thou hast slain." And they spake 
to their kinsfolk that were with Cyneheard, saying, " Come 
forth and leave Cyneheard the ^theling, and not a hair of 
your heads shall be hurt." But their kinsfolk that were with 
Cyneheard answered and said, "We will not come forth, neither 
will we leave Cyneheard the ^theling. And as for your pro- 
mises, we will not hearken unto them, even as the men that 
were with Cynewulf yesterday would not hearken unto our 
promises." Now when Osric the Alderman and the men that 
were Avith him heard that saying, they pressed against the gate 
and brake it down, and fought against Cyneheard and the men 
that were with him. And they slew Cyneheard the ^theling 
and all his company, even eighty-four men. Save only there 
was one whom they slew not, for that he was the godson of 
Osric the Alderman ; yet was he sore wounded. So they 
buried Cyneheard the ^theling at Axminster, but King 
Cynewulf they buried in the royal city, even in Winchester. 
And the Wise Men chose Beorhtric that was of the seed of 
Cerdic to reign over them, and he reigned over the land of the 
West-Saxons sixteen winters. 

Now this is a story which you may believe, because it is 
quite likely in itself, and because it is told in the Chronicle. It 
is a story worth thinking about, because it shows how much 
men in those days thought of faith to their own lord, whether 
he was the King or one in rebellion against the King. You 
see that both the King's men and the ^theling's men were 
alike ready to die for their own chief. 

King Beorhtric married Eadburh, a daughter of King Offa, of 
whom many stories are told, some of which I will tell you pre- 
sently. But the chief thing which I read about in his reign in the 
Chronicle is that it was in his time that the Danes or Northmen 
first began to land and plunder in England, or at any rate in 
Wessex. You will hear a great deal more of these Northmen 
for a long time to come. The truth is that the time was now 
come when the English, in a great part of England, were to be 
dealt with in much the same way as their forefathers had dealt 
with the Welsh. That is to say, the country was gradually 
overrun by men from another land, and a great part of it was 



THE GROWTH OF WESSEX. 91 

settled by them. But the men who thus came in and partly con- 
quered the English were not a people utterly strange to them, 
as the English w^ere to the Welsh. They were the people of 
-the North of Europe, whence they were called the Northmen, 
people of our own race, speaking a Teutonic tongue like our- 
selves, and vf or shipping nearly the same Gods as the English 
had worshipped before they became Christians. In truth, for 
about two hundred years from this time, the Northmen played 
much the same part as the Angles and Saxons had played three 
hundred years earlier. They were always sailing about in their 
ships, plundering by sea, plundering by land, and at last con- 
quering and settling down in various parts of Europe, especially 
Britain, Ireland, Gaul, and Russia. They also found out the 
island of Iceland and the continent of Greenland. But this 
w^as not till a good while after. We are now only at the veiy 
beginning of the invasions of the Northmen, and at this time 
they do not seem to have cared to settle anywhere, but only to 
plunder and go away again. In their ov\^n country, in the 
North, they gradually formed three Kingdoms, Denmark, 
Sweden, and Norway. If you look at the map, you will see 
that we in Britain could not have much to do with the Swedes ; 
their conquests were made to the east, towards Russia. It 
w^as naturally the Danes and Norwegians who came westward, 
and those w^ho came into England seem to have been mainly 
Danes. So our writers often speak of the Northmen generally as 
Danes, without taking much heed whether they all came from 
Denmark or not. I suppose the Danes now must have been 
much in the same state as the Angles and Saxons were when 
they came into Britain. Perhaps they were somew^hat strotlger 
and fiercer, but we can hardly tell, because we know so much 
more of what the Danes did to our forefathers than w^e knov/ 
of what our forefathers had done to the Vv^elsh. The Danes 
were heathens, just as the English had been, and they seem to 
have had a special hatred towards the Christian faith and to- 
wards all that belonged to it, and to have had a special delight 
in destroying the churches and m.onasteries. And they did 
many other cruel and horrible things at the time. But when 
they had once settled in the land and had become Christians, 
their language and manners differed so little from those of the 



92 OLD ENGLISH HIS TOR Y FOR CHILDREN. 

English that the Danes and the EngHsh soon became one 
people. There is no doubt a great deal of Danish blood in all 
the north and east of England, but the Danes and the English 
did not remain as two separate nations in the way that the 
English and Welsh did, so that the Danes may rather be said to 
have become another tribe of Englishmen just like the Angles 
and the Saxons. I think we may divide the Danish inroads into 
three periods : First, When they merely landed to plunder and 
then went away again. Secondly, When they came to conquer 
some part of the land and to settle in it. Thirdly, When 
Kings of all Denmark came to conquer the Kingdom of 
England and to make themselves Kings of it. As yet we 
have to do only with the first of these periods. 

We first read of the landing of the Northmen in 787, the 
year that Beorhtric married Eadburh. The crews of three 
ships landed on the coast of Dorsetshire. When the reeve ^ 
or magistrate who lived at Dorchester heard of it, he rode 
down to the shore, and, as he did not know who the strangers 
were, he ordered them to be taken to the King's town. Upon 
this the Danes turned about and slew the reeve and all his 
men. Soon after this we read a good deal of their inroads in 
Northumberland. Most likely the invasions of the Northmen, 
by helping to weaken the smaller Kingdoms, did a good deal 
tovA^ards uniting all England under the West-Saxon Kings. 

1 must now first mention a very famous name, that of 
Ecgberht, the great King of the West-Saxons, who was the 
first to be lord of all England. We first hear of him in 
Beorhtric's time, when we are told that Oifa and Beorhtric 
drove him out of the land for thirteen years, ^ which thirteen 
years he spent in the land of the Franks where the great King 
Charles reigned. When we are told that Offa helped to drive 

~ Gei^efa or reeve means a King's officer of any sort, great or small. 
Thus we have the Seirgerefa^ the Shire-reeve or Sheriffs the Port-7'eeve or 
Mayor of a town, and so on, down to the Dykei-eeves, who look after the 
cleaning of the rhines in our moors. And in the EngHsh-speaking part of 
Scotland a steward is called a Grieve. Gerefa is the same word as the 
German G^-af ; but that title has risen in the world, while Gerefa has 
fallen. 

2 The text of the Chronicle has three y^dixs, but it seems clear that this 
must be a mis-writing for thirteen. 



THE GROIVTH OF WESSEX. 93 

him out, it sounds as if Offa were afraid that he might stand in 
the way of his daughter Eadburh's children, if she had any. 
However this may be, when Beorhtric died in the year 800, the 
same year that King Charles was crowned Emperor, the Wise 
Men chose the ^theling Ecgberht to be King of the West- 
Saxons. And we read that the very same day there was a 
fight at Kempsford in Gloucestershire between the Alderman 
of the Hwiccas and the Alderman of the AVils^tas, and that 
the Wilssetas had the victory. This was like the beginning of 
the conquests of Ecgberht. 

But before I tell you more of the reign of Ecgberht, I will 
tell you the story of Queen Eadburh, as I find it in later 
writers.^ 



%\t Storg 0f ^mm Sabhurlj. 

Now Eadburh was the daughter of Offa the great King of the 
Mercians, and she became the wife of Beorhtric the King of 
the West-Saxons. But she was a proud woman and cruel, and 
loved to have all power in her own hands. So when any man 
withstood her or ofi'ended her, she told lies of him to the King, 
that he might be put to death ; or if this might not be, she put 
him to death herself by poison. Now there was a young 
Alderman whom the King loved, whose name was Worr.^ So 
Queen Eadburh mixed her a cup of poison that Worr might 
drink of the same and die. And he drank of the cup and 
died. Moreover Beorhtric the King drank of the cup also, for 
he wist not that there was death in the cup. And Beorhtric the 
King died also. Then were all the people of the West-Saxons 
very wroth against Eadburh the Queen, and they drove her out 
of the land. Moreover they made a law that there should no 

1 The story is in William of Malmesbury, and also in Asser's Life of 
King Alfred, the writer of which professes to have been told the story by 
King Alfred himself. I shall speak more of Asser's book presently. 

^ The Chronicle mentions the deaths of Beorhtric and Worr in the 
same year, as if they had something to do v\dth one another. Asser and 
William of Malmesbury speak of the young man whom Eadburh poisoned 
without mentioning his name. Hence they have been generally thought 
to be the same person. 



94 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN, 

more be a Queen in the land of the West-Saxons, because of 
the evil deeds that Eadburh the Queen had done. So the 
King's wife was no more called the Queen, but only the Lady, 
and she sat no more on a throne royal by the side of her hus- 
band, as the Queen of the West-Saxons had done of old time. 
And Eadburh, when she was driven out, crossed the sea and 
went into the land of the Franks to Charles Augustus the 
Emperor.^ And she found the Emperor standing with one of 
his sons, and she spake unto him and gave him gifts. Now 
Charles the Emperor was a merry man and loved to laugh 
and sport withal. So he said unto Eadburh, '' Lo, Eadburh, 
here am I, and there is my son ; choose one of us twain that 
he may be thy husband." Then said Eadburh, "O Lord 
Caesar, thou art old and thy son is young ; give me rather 
thy son, that he may be my husband." Then Charles the 
Emperor laughed again and said, " If thou hadst chosen me 
wiio am old, I would even have given thee my son who is 
young \ but since thou hast chosen my son, thou shalt have 
neither me nor my son." Moreover Charles the Emperor sent 
Eadburh to a monastery of virgins and bade her be their 
Abbess and rule over them. But she ruled over them ill and 
did wickedly in all things. So Charles the Emperor took her 
Abbey away from her that she might rule it no longer. And 
she went forth with only one slave to wander through the land. 
And she came to the city of Pavia, which is the royal city of 
the Lombards ; and there she begged her bread till she died. 
And in the days of King Alfred, who reigned over the West- 
Saxons and who was lord over all the Kings of the English, there 
were many men yet living who had seen Eadburh, the daughter 
of King OfFa and wife of King Beorhtric, begging her bread. 



And now I have come to the reign of Ecgberht, the great 
Bretwalda. He was an ^theling of the blood of Cerdic, and 
he is said to have been son of Ealhmund, and Ealhmund is 

1 As Beorhtric died and Charles became Emperor in the same year, 
Charles may have been only King when Eadburh came to him. Asser 
indeed calls him " Francormn Rex." But he may not have met him till 
the next year, vv^hen Charles was Emperor. 



THE GROWTH 01^ WESSEX, 95 

said to have been an Under-king of Kent. For the old Hne 
of the Kings of Kent had come to an end, and Kent was now 
sometimes under Wessex and sometimes under Mercia. I have 
toid you how he spent thirteen years in banishment, and how, 
when Beorhtric died in 800, he was chosen King of the West- 
Saxons. He reigned till ^:i^(^^ and in that time he brought all 
the English Kingdoms, and the greater part of Britain, more 
or less under his power. The southern part of the island, all 
Kent, Sussex, and Essex, he joined on to his own Kingdom, 
and set his sons or other ^thehngs to reign over them as his 
Under-kings. But Northumberland, Mercia, and East-Anglia 
were not brought so completely under his power as this. Their 
Kings submitted to Ecgberht and acknowledged him as their 
Over-lord, but they went on reigning in their own Kingdoms, 
aud assembling their own Wise Men, just as they did before. 
They became what in after times was called his vassals^ what 
in English was called being his men. They owed him a cer- 
tain obedience as their lord, but they were not appointed 
by him or interfered with at all as long as they wxre faithful 
to him. But the other Kingdoms were rather what were after- 
wards called apanages^ which he could keep in his own hands or 
grant out as he pleased. And besides the English Kings, Ecg- 
berht brought the Welsh, both in Whales and in Cornwall, more 
completely under his powder. But amidst all this greatness 
the Northmen often came, and sometimes they not only 
plundered, but defeated the English in battle. Now we cannot 
help thinking that in all that Ecgberht did he had before 
his eyes the model of the great Emperor at whose court he had 
lived so long. As Charles had joined Germany together, so 
Ecgberht did a great deal to join England together. As Charles 
had various nations besides his own Germans more or less 
under his power, so Ecgberht had the Welsh under his power. 
As Charles made his sons Kings under him over some of the 
lands which he conquered, so did Ecgberht. And lastly, 
both had to do with the terrible Northmen who were be- 
ginning to trouble the world. For though the Northmen did 
not do much damage in Germany and Gaul during Charles' 
own lifetime, yet they began their inroads, and did enough to 
show what they were likely to do in days to come. W^ith the 



96 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

Danes along their own border, along the river Eyder (which 
from Charles' time till 1866 separated Germany from Den- 
mark), Charles had a great deal of fighting, and Northern pirates 
had begun to ravage the coasts of Gaul even while Charles 
was alive. So altogether the reign of Ecgberht was very like 
the reign of Charles on a small scale. Ecgberht made the 
West-Saxons the first people in Britain, much as Charles made 
the Franks the first people on the continent of Europe. Even 
Ecgberht being called Bretwaida was something like Charles 
being called Emperor ; for the Bretwaida was much the same 
in Britain as the Emperor was in the rest of Western Europe. 
But I must now tell you some of the things which happened 
in Ecgberht's reign rather more in order. 

Ecgberht's first wars were with the Welsh of Cornwall. He 
ravaged their country in 813, and it was perhaps then that 
Devonshire was conquered. Devonshire was certainly English 
ten years after, as in 823 we read that the men of Devonshire 
defeated the Welsh in a battle at Gafulford. Cornwall itself 
seems to have become tributary, but it certainly was not 
thoroughly conquered. For we shall often hear of the Welsh 
of Cornwall again, and I have told you that the Cornishmen 
kept their own Welsh language for many hundred years after 
this time, and the names of most of the places and people in 
Cornwall are Welsh to this day. Indeed even in Ecgberht's 
own time the Cornishmen revolted again with the help of the 
Danes, and ravaged the English country. But Ecgberht came 
and defeated them both in a great battle at a place called 
Hengest's-down (Hengestesdun). This was in the year before 
he died, in 835. 

Thus far Ecgberht was only extending his own Kingdom of 
Wessex to the West, as Cenwealh and Ine had done before 
him. But he also did much more than they had ever done, for 
he gradually brought all the other EngHsh Kingdoms under 
his own power. His first wars were with the Mercians, with 
part of whom you will remember there was a battle the very 
day that he was chosen King. But we do not read much 
about Mercian wars till 823. In 821 one Beornwulf had 
turned out Ceolwulf, the last King of the Mercians that I told 
you of I do not find how the war between him and Ecgberht 



THE GROWTH OF WESSEX, 97 

began ; but in ^2-^ there was a great battle at a place called 
^llandun or Ella's Down, and if that be, as some place it, 
near Salisbury, it is clear that Beorm\ailf must have got a long 
way into Ecgberht's dominions. It was a very hard battle, and 
Hun the Alderman of the Sumorsaetas was killed ; but at last 
the West-Saxons w^on. There \vere songs made about it, of 
which w^e find little scraps in some of our books. And one 
chronicle written in rhyme a long time afterwards says : 

Ellandune, Ellandune, thy land is full red 

Of the blood of Bernewolf : there he took his dede (death). 

Beornwulf however did not die at JEllandun, but was only de- 
feated and fled. When Ecgberht had thus weakened Mercia, 
he thought he might get back the lordship over the smaller 
Kingdoms, which had once belonged to the West-Saxons, but 
w^hich the Mercians had lately held. So he sent his son 
-^thehvulf with Ealhstan Bishop of Sherborne and Wulf- 
heard the Alderman, and they drove out Baldred the King ot 
Kent, seemingly without any fighting. Then all the people of 
Kent, Surrey, Sussex, and Essex submitted themselves willingly 
to Ecgberht : for in most of those Kingdoms the line of the 
old Kings had come to an end, and they did not care for the 
new Kings w^ho rose up of themselves, or w^hom the Kings of 
the Mercians had put in. So they were quite willing to be 
under Ecgberht, especially as his father had once been King of 
Kent. And no doubt the people in Essex and Sussex, being 
Saxons, liked the AVest-Saxons better than the Angles of Mercia, 
and felt more akin to them. Thus you see Ecgberht was now 
King of all the Saxons and Jutes, that is of all England south of 
the Thames, and of Essex to the north of it. And if he had 
Essex, he could hardly fail to have had also the great city of 
London. Ecgberht, having got this large dominion, made his 
son ^thelwulf King of Kent under him. 

This was hardly done when the King of the East- Angles, 
wiiose name we do not know, begged Ecgberht to come and 
help him against the Mercians, who were greatly oppressing 
him and his people. We can well believe that the East- 
Angles had sorely hated the Mercians ever since their King 
^thelberht had been so treacherously killed by Offa. So 

H 



98 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

Ecgberht said he would help them. On this Beornwulf 
went against the East-Angles, swearing that he would de- 
stroy them utterly ; but the East-Angles stood up against 
him and fought a battle in which he was killed. The next 
King of the Mercians, Ludeca, came the next year, and was 
killed also, with five of his Aldermen. It does not seem 
clear whether the West-Saxons actually helped the East-Angles 
in this war, but one can hardly think that the East- Angles could 
have done so much all by themselves. At any rate, in 827, 
Ecgberht drove the next King of the Mercians, Wiglaf, out of 
his Kingdom and only let him come back as his man next year. 
Meanwhile Ecgberht had gone up towards Northumberland, but 
the Northumbrians met him at Dore in Derbyshire, just on the 
borders of Northumberland and Mercia, and submitted to him 
without any fighting. Northumberland was just now very weak ; 
for a long time various Kings had been rising and falling, whose 
names I need not give you, so the Northumbrians were not at 
all able to withstand Ecgberht. 

Ecgberht was thus Lord over all the other English Kings, and 
the submission of Mercia seems to have led to the submission 
of the Welsh in what we now call Wales. Cenwulf of Mercia 
seems to have done a great deal to subdue them. The Welsh 
Chronicles tell us that in 816 he got as far as Snowdon, which 
the Welsh call Ereri, and in 819, the year of his death, he 
harried Dyfed or Pembrokeshire. And in 822 Beornwulf con- 
quered Powys, the middle part of Wales on the borders of 
Mercia. So after the Mercians had submitted to Ecgberht, it 
is no wonder that we read that in 828, when he led his army 
into Wales, all the country submitted to him. Thus you see that 
Ecgberht had a greater power than any King that had ever 
been in Britain before him. For he was King of all the Saxons 
and Jutes, and Lord over all the Angles and at any rate over the 
most part of the Welsh. I say the most part, because I do not 
find anything said about the Strathclyde Welsh or about the 
Scots. They had, as you know, sometimes been more or less 
under the Kings of the Northumbrians ; but it is not likely 
that they had been so lately while Northumberland was in 
such disorder. But you must never forget that Northumber- 
land then took in a gi*eat deal of what is now Scotland, namely 



THE GROWTH OF WESSEX. 99 

all Lothian, with King Edwin's Castle, which is Edinburgh. So 
King Ecgberht was Lord from the Irish Sea to the German 
Ocean and from the English Channel to the Firth of Forth. 
So it is not wonderful if, in his charters, he not only called 
himself King of the West-Saxons or King of the West-Saxons 
and Kentishmen, but sometimes Rex Anglorum or King of the 
Enghsh. 

But amidst all this glory there w^re the signs of great evils 
at hand. The Danes came several times. In 832 they ravaged 
Sheppey in Kent. The next year thirty-five ships came to 
Charmouth in Dorsetshire, where they fought King Ecgberht 
himself and defeated him. But in neither case do they seem 
to have made any attempt to stay in the land. And, as you 
know, in 835 Ecgberht beat the Welsh and the Danes together 
in the great battle at Hengestesdun. 

The next year, %2)^^ King Ecgberht died, and his son ^thel- 
wulf, the King of Kent, was chosen King of the West-Saxons. 
And he gave his Kingdom of Kent, with Sussex, Surrey, and 
Essex, to ^thelstan his son. 



H 2 



CHAPTER VIII. 

HOW THE DANES CAME INTO ENGLAND, AND HOW 
ENGLAND BECAME ONE KINGDOM. 

I HAVE now told you the chief things which you need know 
about the history of our people down to the time when, under 
King Ecgberht, the West-Saxons became for ever the chiet 
people of Britain, and their Kings became Lords over all the 
other princes of the island. I have told you how the English 
first came into Britain, how they won the land bit by bit from 
the Welsh, how they founded several Kingdoms, seven and 
more, how they became Christians, how sometimes one King- 
dom and sometimes another had the chief power over the rest, 
and how at last that chief power became fixed in the hands of 
the Kings of the West-Saxons. A wise man might have been 
quite sure from the beginning that, sooner or later, all the 
different English Kingdoms would get joined together, but it 
was not at all clear which would be the one to get the upper 
hand over the rest. And till Ecgberht began to reign, perhaps 
nobody would have thought that Wessex was to be the head 
Kingdom. And it is worth while to stop and think what a 
great difference it has made to us that the chief power did 
come to Wessex rather than to any of the other Kingdoms. 
Let us suppose, for instance, that Northumberland had kept at 
the head, as it was in the days of King Edwin. We may be 
sure that, had it been so, two things at least would have been 
very different from what they are now. Our language, which is 
now much more Saxon than Anglian, would be much more 
Anglian than Saxon ; it would be more like what is now spoken 
in the Lowlands of Scotland. And we may be sure too that 
York would be the capital instead of London. Now if the 



HOW ENGLAND BECAME ONE KINGDOM. loi 

chief power had thus been placed in the north, most Hkely 
Scotland would have been joined to England much sooner 
than it was ; but on the other hand, through the chief power 
being in the south, in the part nearest to the continent, England 
has been able to take a much greater share in the general affairs 
of Europe than it otherwise could have taken. You will find, as 
you read more of history, that the importance of a country 
depends very much on its position as well as on its size. Nor- 
way and Portugal, and Scotland while it was a separate King- 
dom, w^ere never of much account in Europe,^ not only because 
they wxre smaller than most other Kingdoms, but because they 
were, so to speak, so far out of the way. Much smaller states, 
and even single cities, if they were near the middle of Europe, 
v/ere thought much more of. I do not know whether you can 
quite understand all that I have been just now saying, but I 
think you can understand that it has made a great difi^'erence to 
us that the chief power was fixed in the south of England and 
not in the north. It is only quite lately, since so much of 
trade and manufacture and mining has arisen in the north of 
England, that the north has been of at all the same account as 
the south. Perhaps now the north is of more account than the 
south. But it is only quite lately that it has become so, and 
the south of England was of much more account than the 
north for many hundred years, and the reason doubtless was 
because the chief power among the Old-English Kingdoms 
came into the hands of Ecgberht of Wessex. 

Another thing that I told you was how the Danes and other 
Northmen were now beginning to come into England. A 
great deal of what I shall have to tell you now will have to 
be about the wars which the West-Saxon Kings had to wage 
w4th these Danes, and about the way in which many of the 
Danes at last settled in the land and became Enghshmen. 
And you must remember that the Danes, even w^hile fighting 
against the West-Saxon Kings, did in a manner help them to 
become Kings of the whole land. This they did by weakening 
and destroying the smaller Kingdoms. You will remember 

1 Whatever importance Scotland had came from the fact that the French 
Kings were cunning enough to see that Scotland was an useful ally for 
them against England. 



I02 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

that, under Ecgberht, Northumberland, Mercia, and East-AngHa 
still had Kings of their own, though their Kings were the vassals^ 
or, as in Old-English it was called, the mefi of the King of the 
West-Saxons. But when we get to the end of the time of 
which I am now beginning to tell you, we shall find that the 
King of the West-Saxons has grown into the one King of the 
English. You will see that the question then was not whether 
the King of the West-Saxons or the King of the Mercians 
should have the upper hand in England, but whether the King 
of the English could defend his Kingdom, first against the King 
of the Danes and then against the Duke of the Normans. 

I will now go on with the Kings of the West-Saxons who 
reigned after Ecgberht, though they were not Kings of any 
great account till we come to Alfred the Great, Ecgberht's 
grandson. 



§ I. The Reign of King -^thelwulf. 

I have told you already that Ecgberht died in 836, and that 
his son ^thelwulf was chosen King of the West-Saxons, and 
that he gave the Kingdom of Kent and the other small states to 
his brother ^thelstan. ^thelwulf reigned twenty-two years, and 
died in 858. His reign was very much taken up with fighting 
with the Danes, who were always landing in different parts of 
the country. In 839 they got as far as London, and in 851 
they seem to have taken or, as the Chronicle calls it, " broken," 
both Canterbury and London, and defeated Beorhtwulf King 
of the Mercians. And in 855 they wintered for the first time 
in the Isle of Sheppey. King ^thelwulf and his Aldermen had 
to fight many battles with them, in which sometimes the English 
had the better, and sometimes the Danes. I need tell you of 
only two of these battles. In 845 there was a battle at the 
mouth of the Parret, the river on which Bridgewater stands, 
when Eanwulf the Alderman of the Sumorsaetas, Osric the 
Alderman of the Dorssetas, and Ealhstan the Bishop of 
Sherborne, with all the folk of their two shires, fought against 
the heathen men and smote them. Again in 851 there was 
another battle at Aclea or Ockley (that is Oak-lea) in Surrey, 



HOW EXGLAXD BECAME ONE KINGDOM. 103 

where King ^thelwulf himself and his son ^thelbald also 
fought against the Danes who had taken London, and smote 
them there. Bishop Ealhstan was a veiy famous Bishop in the 
time of ^thelwulf, and so was Smthhun Bishop of Winchester, 
who is said to have been ^thelwulfs tutor. This is Saint 
Swithhun about whom and whose day such strange stories are 
told. But of Swithhun we do not read anything except what 
seems to become the office of a Bishop, while you see that 
our Bishop Ealhstan fought in the battles just as much as a lay 
Alderman. 

I must also tell you that in 853 Burhred the King of the 
Mercians with his Wise Men sent to their lord King ^Ethelwult 
to ask for help against the North Welsh, who were troubling 
them at one end w^hile the Danes were troubling them at another. 
So King ^thelwulf went forth with his aimy, and made the 
Welsh submit again to the King of the Mercians. Soon after 
this he gave King Burhred his daughter ^thelswyth to Avife. 

Now there are some parts of the reign of ^thelwulf which I 
feel some difficulty about. I always like to give you the autho- 
rity for what I tell you, that you may know what you may 
believe quite certainly and what is doubtful. Now King ^thel- 
wulf was the father of Alfred the Great, and the latter part of 
^^thelwulf s history is much mixed up with that of his son. I 
have told you that there is a book which professes to be the 
Life of Alfred vvTitten by Bishop Asser his great friend. Now 
if we could be sure that this was really ^ATitten by Asser, this 
would be among our best authorities for these times. But it 
seems hardly possible that all of it could have been written by 
Asser, because it contains some things which there seems 
hardly any w^ay of piecing on to the real histor}^ Still it is most 
likely that it is Asser's book, only with some things put in after- 
wards by somebody else, as often happened. And I have one 
reason for thinking that most of it must be Asser's, which 
perhaps w^ould not comiC into your heads. Asser was a Welsh- 
man ; now the writer of this book calls the English " Saxons," 
just as a Welshman would do both then and now, but as no 
Englishman in those days would have thought of doing.^ Still, 

^ It might be said that a forger might imitate this custom to make his 
book look Uke a Welshman's book ; but this is v-er}^ unlikely. And it 



104 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN, 

however this may be, we cannot put the same trust in the book 
called Asser as we do in the Chronicle, so that, in telling you 
my history, I shall always mark what is in the Chronicle and 
what is only in Asser. ^ I have been somewhat long about this 
matter, because most of the well-known stories about King 
Alfred, some of which I dare say you have heard already, 
come out of Asser. I shall therefore tell you them as tales, 
as I have done the other tales about which we cannot be 
quite certain. 

In 853 King ^thelwulf sent his youngest son Alfred, who 
was then four years old, to Rome, where we read, what seems 
a very strange thing, that Pope Leo not only took him for his 
*' bishop's son" or godchild, but hallowed him as a King. For 
it is hard to understand what a Pope could have to do with 
hallowing a King of the West-Saxons, or again how ^thelwulf 
could be certain that Alfred, his youngest son, ever would be 
King. However so it is said in one of the Chronicles. Two years 
afterwards ^thelwulf gave a tenth of his lands to the Church,^ 
and then went to Rome himself You may remember that 
both Ceadwalla and Ine had done this, but then they gave up 
the Kingdom and stayed at Rome for the rest of their days, but 
^thelwulf only went on what is called a pilgrimage, to see the 
holy places and to pray at them, and after a year's time he came 
home again. On his way back he married Judith the daughter 
of Charles the Bald, King of the West-Franks. This Charles 
was grandson of Charles the Great, and was afterwards Emperor 
himself for a little while. Charles the Great was succeeded in 
the Empire by his son Lewis the Pious, during whose reign and 
after his death there was much quarrelling among his sons 
about dividing his dominions. At last they settled that the 
eldest son Lothar should be Emperor, and should have the 
great cities of Rome and Aachen, with a long narrow strip of 

cannot be a forgeiy of quite late times, because a great deal of it is copied 
by Florence of Worcester, who lived at the beginning of the twelfth century. 

^ I shall quote the book as Asser, but without meaning to pledge myself 
to the genuineness of this or that part. 

2 Or perhaps charged his own lands with the payment of a tithe ; but 
there is nothing at all to show that he laid any charge on the lands of 
other men. 



HOW ENGLAND BECAME ONE KINGDOM. 105 

country reaching from the Mediterranean Sea to the German 
Ocean. This land was called from Lothar, Lotharingia^ and a 
small part of it is called Lorrai?ie still. Lothar, as Emperor, 
was to have a certain supremacy over his brothers, Charles 
and Lewis, who were to reign to the west and east of him. 
This was the beginning of the modern Kingdoms of France 
and Germany, but the separation was not fully made till m^ore 
than a hundred years after this time, and the Kingdom of the 
West-Franks under Charles the Bald w^as not nearly so large as 
France is now. Charles himself still spoke German, and so 
did the Kings of the West- Franks after him for a long while, 
but the French language seems to have been just beginning m 
his time ; for we have an oath which v\'as taken by the soldiers 
of Charles and the soldiers of Lewis, each in their own tongue. 
The soldiers of Lewis of course swear in Old German, but the 
soldiers of Charles swear in w^hat you w^ould call a very strange 
language, something w^hich one may say has left off being Latin, 
and which has not yet become French. 

Now the Chronicle tells us only that ^theh^ailf married 
King Charles's daughter and came safe home, and that his 
people received him gladly and that he died two years after. 
But the story in Asser tells us a great deal more, which is not 
in itself unlikely to be true, but which, if it is true, it is strange 
that the Chronicle should have quite left out.^ We read there 
that yEthelbald, now^ the eldest son of ^Ethelwulf, conspired 
with Bishop Ealhstan and Alderman Eanwulf to keep his father 
out of the land, and that they made this conspiracy in Selwood, 
the great forest on the borders of the Sumorsaetas and the 
W^ils^tas, whence the town of Frome is called Frome Selwood. 
Most part of the great men of the land however were faithful 
to King ^thelwulf, but he, rather than have a civil war with 
his son, gave up to ^thelbald the Kingdom of the West- 
Saxons^ and kept only the Kingdom of Kent and the other 

^ This part of Asser is copied by Florence of Worcester ; but yEthel- 
werd and Henry of Huntingdon follow the Chronicle. 

- That yEthelbald was King for some time before his father's death 
seems clear, because the Chronicle says that he reigned five years, and it 
is plain that he could not have reigned five years after his father's death. 
But this does not prove that he rebelled against him. ^thelwulf may 



io6 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

lands which went with it. It would seem that his eldest 
son ^^thelstan, the Under-king of Kent, was now dead, as we 
hear no more about him. King ^thelwulf, we are also told, 
brought home his wife Judith, and set her by his side on a 
royal throne, no man gainsaying him. You will remember that 
it is said that, after Eadburh had done such evil deeds, the 
West-Saxons made a law that the King's wife should not be 
Queen or sit on a royal throne. If this story is true, it may 
be that this law did not hold good in Kent, so that Judith 
might be Queen there, though not in Wessex. 

Before ^thelwulf died, he seems to have made a will 
dividing his dominions, and, as we should say, settling the suc- 
cession. As this will was confirmed by the Wise Men, it was 
much the same as an election made during the King's lifetime. 
This was not often done in England, but it was very common 
in Germany, ^thelwulf then left the Kingdom of Wessex to 
his sons ^thelbald, ^Ethelred, and Alfred in order, and Kent 
to ^thelberht, who was not to have any right to the Kingdom 
of Wessex. 

King ^thelwulf died in 858 and was buried at Winchester. 



§ 2. The Reign of King ^thelbald. 
858—860. 

^thelbald succeeded his father, but he only reigned a little 
while, and we read very little of him. He married his father's 
widow Judith,^ as Eadbald of Kent had done long before with 
his father's widow. Such a marriage, I need not tell you, is 
held unlawful among Christians, but it seems to have been an 
old custom with some of the heathen Germans. He died in 
860 and was buried at Sherborne ; he is said^ to have been 

very likely have joined him to himself in the Kingdom when he took his 
journey to Rome. 

^ This is not in the Chronicle, but besides Asser, it is told us by two 
good writers in Gaul, Prudentias of Troyes and Hincmar of Rheims. This 
shows us that some of the things in Asser which are not in the Chronicle 
may be true, though we must be careful how we admit them. 

^ So says Henry of Huntingdon, whose account, as it often does, reads 
like a scrap of an old ballad. 



HOW ENGLAND BECAME ONE KINGDOM. 107 

much lamented by his people. His widow ^ Judith then sold 
all that she had in England and went back to her father's 
court. She aftenvards married a certain Baldwin, w^ho became 
the first Count of Flanders. Baldwin was afterwards a very 
common name among the Counts of Flanders, so that the 
English sometimes called Flanders Baldiuinesland. From this 
Baldwin and Judith was descended Matilda the wife of AVilliam 
the Conqueror, so that William's sons and all our Kings since 
them descended in the female line from Charles the Great, as 
we shall see that they also did from Ecgberht. 

§ 3. The Reign of King ^thelberht. 

According to ^thehvulf 's will, ^thelred ought now to have 
succeeded, but somehow^ or other, we are not told how, JEthel- 
berht, King of Kent, came to the crown. Perhaps it was 
thought better that Wessex and Kent should be joined together. 
He too reigned only a little time, and he had much trouble 
with the Danes. We are now getting near the second period 
of the Danish invasion, when, instead of merely plundering, 
they began to try to settle in the land. In ^thelberht's time 
we read how they ravaged Thanet, and how another time they 
took Winchester the royal city, but the Aldermen of Hamp- 
tonshire^ (which we now call Hampshire) and Berkshire came 
and smote them. King ^thelberht died in 866 and was 
buried at Sherborne. 



§ 4. The Reign of King ^thelred the First. 
866—871. 

^thelred now came to the crown. Nearly all that I have 
to tell you about his reign is taken up with fightings with the 

1 There seems no authority for saying that Bishop Swithhun made 
^thelbald put her away. Hincmar calls her his widow [relicta). 

^ From Hampton, that is South Hampton, to distinguish it from North 
Hampton in Mercia. We now generally write the names in one word, 
Northampton and Soicthampton. 



io8 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

Danes. As you read or hear about them, you will do well to 
have your map always open before you, and to track the march 
of the armies and see what parts of England suffered most in 
these wars. Though the Danes were coming into England 
and trying to settle durmg the whole of -.^thelred's reign, they 
did not come into Wessex just at first. So the only thing we 
hear of in Wessex during the first two years of ^'Ethelred is the 
death of two men whom you have heard of several times, 
Bishop Ealhstan and Alderman Eanwulf They both died in 
867. Ealhstan, who had been Bishop fifty years, was buried in 
his own church at Sherborne ; the Alderman of the Sumorsaetas 
was buried at Glastonbury, as the greatest church of his shire. 

Meanwhile the great Danish invasion had begun in the 
northern parts of England. There are many stories told in 
the old Northern Songs as to the cause of it. Some tell how 
Ragnar Lodbrog, a great hero of these Northern tales, was 
seized by ^ila King of the Northumbrians, and was thrown 
into a dungeon full of serpents, and how, while he was dying 
of the bites of the serpents, he sang a wonderful death-song, 
telling of all his old fights, and calling on his sons to come 
and avenge him. Others tell how Lodbrog, with only his 
hawk on his hand, was driven by a storm to the coast of East- 
Anglia ; how Beorn, the huntsman of King Edmund, slew 
him ; how King Edmund then put Beorn into a boat and let 
it drift on the sea ; how the boat drifted to Denmark, and how 
Beorn made the sons of Lodbrog believe that it was King 
Edmund who had slain their father, and bade him come and 
avenge him. Others tell how the King of the Northumbrians 
took away the wife of one of his subjects from him, and how 
the husband went to Denmark, and bade the Danes come and 
avenge him.^ Some of these stories may be true, and the tale 
of Ragnar Lodbrog is a very grand and famous story. Still 
they are only stories \ what we really know is this. When the 
Danes began to come in ^thelred's time, Edmund was King 

1 This story is told in two ways. One makes the man a merchant of 
York, the other a Thane called Beorn ; one calls the King ^lla, the other 
Osberht ; one makes him bring in the sons of Ragnar Lodbrog, the other 
makes him bring in Guthorm or Guthriim, of whom we shall hear more 
before long. 



HOW ENGLAND BECAME ONE KINGDOM. 109 

in East-Anglia and Burhred in Mercia, while in Northumber- 
land the King Osberht had just been deposed, and ^lla, who 
was not of the kingly house, had been set up instead. The 
Danes came first in "^(^6 into East-Anglia, where they passed 
the winter, the people having made peace with them. Next 
year they crossed the Humber-mouth into Northumberland 
and took York. The Northumbrians were too much divided 
among themselves to do much at first ; but after a while the 
two Kings agreed and went with all their men against the 
Danes. They got into the town, but both the Kings were 
killed and many of their people, and the rest made peace mth 
the Danes. The Danes then set up one Ecgberht as King in 
Northumberland, but he seems to have been a mere puppet in 
their hands, and he was allowed to reign only in the country 
north of the Tyne, the old Kingdom of Bernicia.^ It would 
almost seem as if they kept York and all the southern part of 
Northumberland to themselves. Then in %6'^ the Danes got 
into Mercia as far as Nottingham ; so King Burhred sent to 
his brothers-in-law. King JEthelred and the ^theling Alfred, 
to come and help him. So they went with their West-Saxons 
as far as Nottingham, but there was no great fight, and the 
Mercians too made peace with the Danes. 

One hardly knows what this making peace with the Danes 
means. WTiere it did not mean actual submission, it could at 
most have meant merely giving them presents to go away for a 
time. For, though the Northumbrians had made peace, we 
find the Danes next year (869) at York, and in 870 they ride 
through Mercia into East-Anglia. This invasion of East-Anglia 
is a very important one in two ways. It was a real conquest j 
the Danes took complete possession of the country, and made 
it into a Danish Kmgdom. The native East- Anglian Kings 
came to an end, and the utmost that the West-Saxon Kings 
could do for a long time was to try and get the same lordship 
over the Danish Kings in East-Anglia which they had before 
held over the native Kings. Thus we get the first distinct 
Danish settlement in "England.^ This invasion should also be 

1 It is probably from this that the word Northumberland got its later 
and narrower sense, meaning the country north of the Tyne. 

^ Yet it is certain that Danish names of places and the like are more 



I lo OLD ENGLISH HISTOR V FOR CHILDREN, 

remembered, because of the famous story of the martyrdom 
of Kmg Edmund, who is therefore known as Saint Edmund.^ 
We are told that the Danish chiefs, Ingwar and Hubba, wintered 
at Thetford, and then King Edmund fought against them, but 
was beaten and taken prisoner. They then offered him his 
hfe and kingdom, if he would forsake Christianity and reign 
under them. When he refused, they tied him to a tree and shot 
at him with arrows, and at last cut off his head. So you may 
suppose that Saint Edmund has ever since been greatly re- 
verenced, especially in his own Kingdom. In the churches of 
Norfolk and Suffolk you often see pictures of him pierced 
with arrows, especially on the rood-screens which divide the 
nave from the chancel. The Danes at the same time killed 
Hunberht the Bishop of the East-Angles, but he seems to have 
been almost forgotten in the fame of the King. 

The Danes then ravaged the country, especially burning the 
churches and monasteries. They then went on into Mercia 
doing the same. They burned and broke down the great 
minster at Medeshamstead, which is now called Peterborough, 
and slew the Abbot and his monks. They did the like at 
Crowland, which is not far from Peterborough, many of the 
great abbeys in that country having been built on islands in 
the fen country, as Glastonbury is here. There is a very par- 
ticular account of the destruction of Crowland, if we could 
only believe it, in the book which is called Abbot Ingulfs His- 
tory of Crowland. Ingulf lived in the time of William the Con- 
queror, but it is quite certain that he did not write the book 
which is called by his name. Many things show that it must 

common in some other parts of England, as in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, 
than they are in East-Anglia. But perhaps this may be for the very reason 
that East-Anglia was the first complete Danish conquest. As it was con- 
quered so easily, it is not unlikely that it was really less ravaged, and the 
English inhabitants less disturbed, than in some other parts. In other 
parts, even if the English were not driven out as the Welsh had been 
before them, yet at least the chief property in the land must have 
passed into the hands of Danes. I mean those parts where most of the 
places bear the names of Danish occupiers, Haconby, Kettilby, and such 
like. These names are very common in Lincolnshire, but are hardly found 
in East-Anglia. 

1 You must not confound this Saint Edmund the King with another Saint 
Edmund, who was Archbishop of Canterbury in the thirteenth century. 



HOW ENGLAND BECAME ONE KINGDOM. in 

have been written several hundred years later. Still it is possible 
that whoever did wTite it may have worked in many stories from 
the old traditions and records of the Abbey; and though a 
great deal is certainly false, yet some things may be true. 
Anyhow you will like to hear how, while all the monks of 
Crowland were being killed, Thurgar, a boy of ten years old, 
had first seen Lentwine the sub-prior killed and thought he 
should die too; and how the younger Jarl^ Sidroc pitied 
him, for he was so young and fair, and spared him, and took 
off his little monk's coat and put on him a Danish garment. 
So the young Thurgar hid himself and escaped, and lived to 
tell men all that he had seen when the Danes burned the 
minster at Crowland. 

The next year, 871, the Danes for the first time entered 
Wessex. But as yet w^e hear of them only in the eastern part of 
the Kingdom, in Berkshire, Hampshire, and Surrey. The first 
place they came to was Reading, which of course was then 
a frontier town on the borders of Mercia. Nine great battles, 
besides smaller skirmishes, were fought this year, in some of 
which the English won and in others the Danes. First, Alder- 
man ^thelwulf fought the Danes at Englefield in Berkshire, 
and beat them, killing one of their Earls. Four days after that 
there was another battle at Reading, where King ^thelred and 
Alfred the ^thefing and Alderman ^thelwulf all fought, but 
the Danes had the better of it and ^thehvulf was killed. Four 
days after^vards there was another more famous battle at ^sces- 
dun or Ashdo^\m, also in Berkshire. We are told that the 
heathen men Vv'ere in t^vo divisions ; one was commanded by 
their two Kings Bagsecg and Halfdene, and the other by ^y^ 
Earls, Sidroc the Old, Sidroc the Young, Osbearn, Fraena, and 
Harold. And King ^Ethelred was set against the Kings and 
Alfred the ^theling against the Earls. And the heathen men 
came on against them. But King ^thelred heard mass in his 
tent.2 And men said, " Come forth, O King, to the fight, for 
the heathen men press hard upon us." And King ^thelred 

^ Jarl is the same as our Ea^'l. This Danish title afterwards took the 
place of the Enghsh Alderman, but it was not till Cnut's time that it got 
into Southern England. 

2 This part of the story comes from Asser only. 



1 1 2 OLD ENGLISH HIS TOR Y FOR CHILDREN-, 

said, " I will serve God first and man after, so I will not come 
forth till all the words of the mass be ended." So King 
^thelred abode praying, and the heathen men fought against 
Alfred the JEtheling. And Alfred said, "I cannot abide till 
the King my brother comes forth ; I must either flee, or fight 
alone with the heathen men." So Alfred the ^theling and his 
men fought against the five Earls. Now the heathen men stood 
on the higher ground and the Christians on the lower. Yet did 
Alfred go forth trusting in God, and he made his men hold close 
together with their shields,^ and they went forth like a wild boar 
against the hounds. ^ And they fought against the heathen men 
and smote them, and slew the five Earls, Sidroc the Old, Sidroc 
the Young, Osbearn, Fraena, and Harold. Then the mass was 
over,^ and King ^thelred came forth and fought against the 
two Kings, and slew Bagsecg the King with his own hand. So 
the English had the victory, and smote the heathen men with 
a great slaughter and chased them even unto Reading. And 
after fourteen days there was yet another battle at Basing, and 
King ^Ethelred and Alfred the ^theling fought again with the 
heathen men. But the heathen men prevailed against them and 
kept possession of the place of battle, yet took they no spoil.'^ 
Then came there other heathen men from beyond sea, and 
joined themselves to their fellows that were in the land of the 
West-Saxons.^ And after two months there was again a battle 
at Merton, and King ^thelred and Alfred the ^theling fought 
with the heathen men, and for a while they overcame them, but 
in the end the heathen men had the better and kept possession 
of the place of battle. In that fight was Heahmund Bishop of 
Sherborne slain. And at Easter-tide King ^thelred died, and 

1 Asser calls it a testudo or tortoise. This is the shield-wall^ the famous 
tactic of the English and the Danes alike. We shall hear of it in all the 
great battles, down to the end. 

2 This is iVsser's comparison. 

^ From Asser's account one would think that ^thelred's division had 
no share in the battle. But the Chronicle distinctly says that ^Ethelred fought 
against the two Kings, and Henry of Huntingdon adds that he himself 
killed Bagsecg, so this is the only way in which I can put the different 
stories together. I always take care never to co7itradict the Chronicle, even 
when I bring in details from other sources. 

^ yEthelweard. ^ Asser. 



HOW ENGLAND BECAME ONE KINGDOM. 113 

they buried him in the minster at Wimborne in the land of the 
Dorscetas, and Alfred his brother reigned in his stead. 

You see then that King ^thelred reigned but a few years, but 
that those years were very important and very fearful years. As 
he was a good man and fought bravely against the heathen, and 
most likely died of a wound in his last battle, men looked on 
him as a saint and a kind of martyr. You will find as you go 
on that many good and brave men were thus looked on as 
saints and martyrs, though they certainly were not actual 
martyrs in the way that Saint Edmund was. There is still 
a brass plate in Wimborne Minster which marks the burial- 
place of King ^^thelred ; but it is many hundred years later 
than his time, as late, I believe, as the time of Queen Elizabeth. 
This shows how long men remembered and reverenced him, 

§ 5. The Reign of Kixg Alfred the Great. 
871 — 900. 

We now come to our great King Alfred, the best and greatest 
of all our Kings. We know quite enough of his history to be 
able to say that he really deserves to be so called, though I 
must warn you that, just because he left so great a name behind 
him, people have been fond of attributing to him things which 
really belonged to others. Thus you may sometimes see nearly 
all our laws and customs attributed to Alfred, as if he had 
invented them all for himself You will sometimes hear that 
Alfred founded Trial by Jury, divided England into Counties, 
and did all kinds of other things. Now the real truth is that 
the roots and beginnings of most of these things are very much 
older than the time of Alfred, while the particular forms in 
which we have them now are very much later. But people 
have a way of fancying that everything must have been in- 
vented by some particular man, and as Alfred was more famous 
than anybody else, they hit upon Alfred as the most likely 
person to give them to. But, putting aside fables, there is 
quite enough to show that there have been very few Kings, 
and very few mien of any sort, so great and good as King 
Alfred. Perhaps the only equally good King we read of is 
Saint Lewis of France ; and though he was quite as good, v/e 

I 



114 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN, 

cannot set him down as being so great and wise as Alfred. 
Certainly no King ever gave himself up more thoroughly than 
Alfred did fully to do the duties of his office. His whole life 
seems to have been spent in doing all that he could for the good 
of his people in every way. And it is wonderful in how many 
ways his powers showed themselves. That he was a brave 
warrior is in itself no particular praise in an age when almost 
every man was the same. But it is a great thing for a prince 
so large a part of w^hose time was spent in fighting to be able 
to say that all his wars were waged for the deliverance of his 
country from the most cruel enemies. And we may admire too 
the wonderful way in which he kept his mind always straight 
and firm, never either giving way to bad luck or being puffed 
up by good luck. We read of nothing like pride or cruelty or 
injustice of any kind either towards his own people or towards 
his enemies. And if he was a brave warrior, he was many 
other things besides. He was a lawgiver ; at least he collected 
and arranged the laws, and caused them to be most carefully 
administered. He was a scholar, and wrote and translated 
many books for the good of his people. He encouraged 
trade and enterprise of all kinds, and sent men to visit distant 
parts of the world, and bring home accounts of what they saw. 
And he was a thoroughly good man and a devout Christian in 
all relations of life. In short, one hardly knows any other 
character in all history so perfect ; there is so much that is good 
in so many different ways ; and though no doubt Alfred had 
his faults like other people, yet he clearly had none, at any 
rate in the greater part of his life, which took away at all 
seriously from his general goodness. One wonders that such 
a man was never canonized as a Saint ; most certainly many 
people have received that name who did not deserve it 
nearly so well as he did. 

Alfred, or, as his name should really be spelled, ^lfred,i was 
the youngest son of King ^thelwulf, and was born at Wantage 
in Berkshire in 849. His mother was Osburh, the first, or 
perhaps the second, wife of ^thelwulf. She was the daughter 
of Oslac the King's cup-bearer, who came of the royal house of 

^ That is, the rede or counsel of the elves. A great many Old-Eng- 
lish names are called after the elves or fairies. 



HOW ENGLAND BECAME ONE KINGDOM. 115 

the Jutes in^ Wight. Now a story is told of Alfred and his 
mother which you may perhaps have heard already, and which 
is such a beautiful tale that I am really sorry to have to say 
that it cannot possibly be true. We are told that up to the 
age of twelve years Alfred was fond of hunting and other sports, 
but that he had not been taught any sort of learning, not so 
much as to read his own tongue. But he loved the Old- English 
songs ; and one day his mother had a beautiful book of songs 
with rich pictures and fine painted initial letters, such as you 
may often see in ancient books. And she said to her children, 
*' I will give this beautiful book to the one of you who shall first 
be able to read it." And Alfred said, ''' Mother, will you really 
give me the book when I have learned to read it? " And Osburh 
said, " Yea, my son." So Alfred went and found a master, and 
soon learned to read. Then he came to his mother, and read 
the songs in the beautiful book and took the book for his own. 
Now it is a great pity that so pretty a story cannot be true. 
And I must tell you w^hy it cannot. Alfred was sent to Rome 
to the Pope when he was four years old ; and if the Pope took 
him as his ''bishop-son" and anointed him to be King, one 
cannot help thinking that he would have him taught to read 
and to learn Latin. And it is quite certain that he could do 
both very well in after-life. Still this is not quite certain proof, 
as he might have learned afterwards. But this is quite certain. 
Alfred was not twelve years old till 861. By that time his 
brothers were not children playing round their mother, but 
grown men and Kings, and two of them, ^thelstan and ^thel- 
bald, were dead. Moreover in 861 Alfred's father JEthelwulf 
was dead, and his mother must have been dead also, as ^thel- 
\vulf married Judith in 856, when Alfred was only seven years 
old. If then anything of the kind happened, it could not have 
been when Alfred was twelve years old, but before he was four. 
For in that year he went to Rome and could never have seen his 
mother again, even if she were alive when he w^ent. And for a 
child of four years old not to be able to read is not so very 
wonderful a thing, even in our own time.-'^ 

1 I have seen in different books two attempts to get out of this difficulty, 
but I do not think either of them will do. 

First, some suggest that Osburh was not dead when ^thelwulf married 

I 2 



I l6 old ENGLISH HIS TOR V FOR CHILDREN. 

I have told you how, when Alfred was four years old, he was 
sent to Rome by his father, and no doubt he came back with 
^^thelwulf on his return. We have seen also that he took a 
leading part in the wars of his brothers against the Danes. In 
868, when he was in his twentieth year, while ^Ethelred was 
King, Alfred married. His wife's name was Ealhswith ; she 
was the daughter of ^thelred called the Mickle or Big, Alder- 
man of the Gainas in Lincolnshire, and her mother Eadburh 
was of the royal house of the Mercians. It is said that on the 
very day of his marriage he was smitten with a strange disease, 
which for twenty years never quite left him, and fits of which 
might come on at any time. If this be true, it makes all the 
great things that he did even more wonderful. In 871, on 
.-Ethelred's death, he came to the Crown, ^thelred had 
some young children, but nobody thought of their succeed- 
ing, so Alfred, the youngest son of ^thelwulf, became King 
of the West-Saxons and Overlord of all England, as his 
father had appointed so long before with the consent of his 
Wise Men. 

So Alfred was King, and he had at once to fight for his 
Kingdom. I have told you already of all the battles which were 
fought in the year 871, before ^thelred died, and Alfred had 
to fight yet another battle before the year was out. This was 
at Wilton near Sahsbury, which I suppose was then the chief 
town of the Wilsaetas. The modern city of Salisbury, or New 
Sarum as it is still called, was not founded till long after, in 
the thirteenth century, when the new cathedral was built j 

Judith, but that he had put her away, and that she might still have had her 
children about her. But of this there is no sort of proof ; and when we 
read that a man, especially a good man like ^thelwulf, married a second 
wife, we are bound to suppose that his first wife was dead, unless we have 
some clear proof that she was alive. And granting this, w^e still have the 
difhculty that, when Alfred was twelve years old, his brothers were not, as 
the story clearly implies, boys, but grown men and Kings, and that some 
of them were dead. 

Secondly, some suggest that the story really belongs not to Alfred's 
mother Osburh, but to his step-mother Judith. Now it is really ridiculous 
to fancy that this young foreign girl would act as a careful mother to ^thel- 
wulf's sons, some of whom must have been older than herself, and one of 
whom she was unprincipled enough to marry. Moreover in 861 ^thelbald 
was already dead, and Judith had gone back into Gaul. 



HOW ENGLAND BECAME ONE KINGDOM, 117 

what is meant by Salisbury in these times is the old town, 
called Old Sarum, where the old cathedral^ and the old castle 
were, but which has long been quite forsaken. It is a won- 
derful place indeed, with some of the greatest fosses or 
ditches that are to be seen anywhere. But the name Wilton 
seems to show that that tow^n must have been the chief place 
of Wiltshire in those times. The battle of Wilton seems not to 
have been a very decisive one, as we read that the Danes were 
put to flight and yet that they kept possession of the field of 
battle. On the w^hole it is hard to see which side had the 
better in the mere fighting of this year, but you must remember 
that the Danes, being in a strange country, had nothing to lose 
but their lives, while the English not only suffered the loss of 
the men who were actually killed in the battles, but the mere 
marching about of the armies and the plundering and burning 
by the Danes must have been dreadful blows to them. But 
after the battle of Wilton the Danes seem to have been tired ; 
we read that they made peace ^^dth the West-Saxons ; and 
there was peace, so far as Wessex was concerned, for a few. 
years. But they were all the while fighting and plundering and 
settling in other parts of Britain, both in Northumberland and 
Mercia, and also among the Picts and the Strathclyde Welsh. 

The Danes did not come again into Wessex till 876, but two 
very important things happened meanwhile in Mercia and 
Northumberland. In 874 Burhred^ King of the Mercians, 
King Alfred's brother-in-law, ran away and left his Kingdom 
for fear of the Danes who had entered the country of Lindesey,^ 
that is the northern part of Lincolnshire, and had got as far as 
Repton in Nottinghamshire. At Repton the minster is quite 
gone, but the monastery there was very famous in early times ; 
there is some very ancient w^ork in the parish church, which 
may very likely be as old as Alfred's days. Burhred, instead 

1 But you must remember that even Old Salisbuiy did not "become a 
Bishop's see till the time of William the Conqueror. \Yiltshire was 
first in the diocese of Winchester, then in that of wSherborne ; afterwards 
the Vv^ilssetas had a Bishop of their own at Ramsbury. 

- That is, the Isle oi Lindiim, the Roman city now called Lincoln. The 
name of Lincoln is from Lindtim and Colonia, the town having been a 
Roman colon v. 



1 18. OLD ENGLISH HISTOR Y FOR CHLLDREN, 

of fighting, like his brother-in-law Alfired, went out of the land, 
and went to Rome, like Ceadwalla and Ine, and died almost as 
soon as he got there. The Danes then gave the crown of 
Mercia to one of Burhred's Thanes named Ceolwulf ; but ol 
course he was a mere puppet in their hands ; indeed he 
swore oaths to them, and had to do wdiatever they bade 
him. Thus the old Kingdom of Mercia came to an end. 
And this was one of the ways in which the coming of 
the Danes helped to make all England into one Kingdom. 
For of course, when the Danes were gone and there was some 
quiet again, it was easier, now that there was no King in Mercia, 
to join Mercia or part of it more completely on to Wessex, 
which I shall tell you about at the proper time. The other 
important thing is that, in the year 876, the year in which the 
Danes came again into Wessex, another party of them, under 
Healfdene, divided the lands of Northumberland among them, 
and began ploughing and tilling them. Thus you see, as I told 
you, the Danes were beginning to settle in the land, instead of 
merely coming to plunder and go away. Now, no doubt, it w^as 
that so many places in the North of England got Danish names. 
When w^e find villages in Yorkshire called Haxby and Thirkleby, 
w^e may be quite sure that they were once the estates of Danes 
called Hakon and Thurkill, and most likely these were the men 
to whom they were given by Healfdene in 876. 

Though the West-Saxons had no fighting by land during 
these years, things were not quite quiet, for in 875 King Alfred 
had a fight at sea against some of the Danish pirates. This 
sea-fight is worth remembering, as being, I suppose, the first 
victory won by Englishmen at sea, where Englishmen have 
since won so many victories. King Alfred then fought against 
seven Danish ships, of which he took one and put the rest to 
flight. It is somewhat strange that we do not hear more than 
we do of warfare by sea in these times, especially when we 
remember how in earlier times the Angles and .Saxons had 
roved about in their ships, very much as the Danes and other 
Northmen were doing now. It would seem that the English, 
after they settled in Britain, almost left off being a sea- 
faring people. We find Alfred and other Kings doing what 
they could to keep up a fleet and to encourage a naval spirit 



HOW ENGLAND BECAME ONE KINGDOM. 119 

among their people. And in some degree they did so ; still 
we do not find the English, for a long while after this time, 
doing nearly so much by sea as they did by land. This was a 
pity ; for ships might then, as in later times, have been wooden 
walls. It is much better to meet an enemy at sea, and to keep 
him from landing in your countr}^, than to let him land, even if 
you can beat him when he has landed. 

But in 876 the Danes came again into Wessex ; and we thus 
come to that part of Alfred's life which is at once the most 
terrible and the most honourable. It is the time when his 
fortune was lowest and when his spirit was highest. The army, 
under Guthorm or Guthrum, the Danish King of East-Anglia, 
came suddenly to Wareham in Dorsetshire. The Chronicle 
says that they " bestole " — that is, came secretly or escaped — 
from the West-Saxon army, which seems to have been waiting 
for them.^ This time Alfred made peace with him, and they 
gave him some of their chief men for hostages, and they 
swore to go out of the land. This time they swore on the 
holy bracelet, which was the m.ost solemn oath in use among 
the heathen Northmen, and on which they had never before 
sworn at any of the times when they had made peace with the 
English. But they did not keep their oath any better for taking 
it in this more solemn way. The part of the host Vv^hich had 
horses "bestole away" to Exeter,^ and it would seem that the 
rest stayed at Wareham. For we read that the next year (877) 
the army went from Wareham to Exeter, and a great fleet set 
out to go " west about," perhaps to go round the Land's End, 
or perhaps only to sail round the Isle of Purbeck to get to 
Exeter. For in those days, when ships were much smaller than 

1 ^thehveard says that they "joined with the western army, which they 
had never done before," as if some Danes had been staying all this time in 
Wessex, or perhaps more likely among the Welsh in Cornwall. 

2 Asser adds that they killed all the King's horsemen. He goes on to 
speak of the march to Exeter, adding that in the British tongne that city 
is cpJled " Caerwisc." This is the sort of thing which a later forger would 
hardly think of, so this piece at least seems like a bit of the real Asser. 

Exeter, Exanceaster, of course means the town on the ''Exe, Usk, or 
Wise," " Isca DamnoniormTi," as it is called in Latin, to distinguish it from 
" Isca Silurum," or Caerleon-on-Usk. The name of Damnonii is of course 
the same as that of the Defenas or Dcfnscvtas. 



I20 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

they are now, they could get higher up the rivers, and then 
Exeter was a great port. But now large ships cannot get so high 
up the river Exe. So you may remember that Caerleon-on-Usk 
was a great port in old times, but now ships only get up as far 
as Newport. But there is this difference between the two Iscce^ 
that Exeter still remains a large city, while Caerleon has quite 
gone down in the world. However, wherever the fleet was 
going, it did not get far. A great storm came on, and broke 
many of the ships, so that they got no further than Swan- 
wick or Swanage, in the Isle of Purbeck, not far from 
Wareham. Perhaps it was this bad luck which made them 
make peace again. For King Alfred rode after the Danish 
horse as far as Exeter, but he did not overtake them till they 
had got there, and were safe in the castle. Then they made 
peace, swearing oaths, and giving as many hostages as the King 
asked for. And this time the Chronicle says that they kept good 
peace. That is to say, they went for the rest of the year out 
of Wessex into Mercia. There, we read, they divided part of 
the land and gave part to Ceolwulf. I suppose it was now 
that they finally settled in Lincolnshire and the other parts of 
Mercia where we hear most of the Danes afterwards, and where 
Danish names are still common. In the parts of Mercia 
which are near to Wessex we do not find Danish names. 

And now we come to the terrible year 878, the greatest and 
saddest and most glorious in all Alfred's life. In the very 
beginning of the year, just after Twelfth-night, the Danish host 
again cam.e suddenly — "bestole" as the Chronicle says — to 
Chippenham. Then '' they rode through the West-Saxons' land, 
and there sat down, and mickleof the folk over sea they drove, 
and of the others the most deal they rode over ; all but the King 
Alfred \ he with a little band hardly fared [went] after the 
woods and on the moor-fastnesses." How can I tell you this 
better than in the words of the Chronicle itself, only altering 
some words into their modern shape, that you may the better 
understand them ? One hardly sees how it was that the country 
could be all at once so utterly overrun, especially as there is 
no mention made of any battle. There is indeed one account 
which says that Alfred did not reign so well at the beginning 
as he did afterwards, but that he did badly in many things and 



HOW EXGLAND BECAME OXE AVXGDOM. 121 

oppressed his people, so that they would not fight for him : but 
that he was rebuked by his cousin the hermit Saint Neot, and 
that after that he ruled well. But I do not at all believe this, 
because there is no good authority for it,^ and it does not agree 
in the least with what went before and what goes after. It is 
more likely of the two, as some think, that the part of Alfred's 
dominions where the people were still of Welsh descent gave 
him some trouble, and that they did not join heartily with his 
own West-Saxons. But I do not see any very clear proof even 
of this, and anyhow it is quite certain that this time of utter 
distress lasted only a very little while, for in a few months 
Alfred was again at the head of an army and able to fight 
against the Danes. It must have been at this time that the 
story of the cakes, which I dare say you have heard, happened, 
if it ever happened at all. The tale is quite possible, buc there 
is no proof of it being true. It is said that Alfred went and 
stayed in the hut of a neatherd or swineherd of his, who knew 
Avho he was, though his wife did not know him. One day the 
woman set some cakes to bake, and bade the King, who was 
sitting by the fire mending his bow and arrows, to tend them. 
Alfred thought more of his bow and arrows than he did of the 
cakes, and let them burn. Then the woman ran in and cried out, 

"There, don't you see the cakes on fire? Then wherefore tum them 

not ? 
You're glad enough to eat them when they are piping hot ?'' - 

It is almost more sti'ange when we are told by some that this 
swineherd or neatherd^ afterwards became Bishop of Win- 

1 The story has got into some copies of Asser's Life from the book 
called Assers Annals, which is undoubtedly a forgery. Most likely it 
comes from some life of Saint 2\ eot, the author of which was anxious to 
exalt the saint, and did not mind how unfair he was to the King. 

■^ The woman's speech is put into two Latin verses : — 

" Urere quos cemis panes gyrare moraris, 
Quum nimium gaudes hos manducare calentes. " 

Most likely the whole stor}^ comes from a ballad. 

•^ The story that Alfred took shelter in a herdsman's cottage is one ston% 
and the story that Bishop Denewulf had been a swnreherd is another 
ston\ But people have ver}^ naturally put the two stories together and 
have thought that Denewulf was the same man in whose hut the cake-story 



122 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN 

Chester. They say that his name was Denewulf, and that the 
King saw that, though he w^as in so lowly a rank, he was 
naturally a very wise man. So he had him taught, and at last 
gave him the Bishoprick. But it is hard to believe this, espe- 
cially as Denewulf, Bishop of Winchester, became Bishop the 
very next year. 

We will go on with things that are more certain. I do not 
think that I can do better than tell you the story as it is in the 
Chronicle, only changing those forms of words which you might 
not understand. 

''And that ilk [same]^ winter was Iwer's and Healfdene's 
brother among the West-Saxons in Devonshire ; and him there 
men slew and eight hundred men with him and forty men of his 
host. And there was the banner^ taken which they the Raven 
hight [call]. And after this Easter wrought King Alfred with 
his little band a Avork [fortress] at Athelney,^ and out of that 
work was he striving with the [Danish] host, and (with him) 
that deal [part] of the Sumorsaetas that nighest was. And on 
the seventh week after Easter he rode to Ecghrihtesstan^^ by 
the east of Selwood ; and there to meet him came the Sumor- 
s^tas all and the Wils^tas and of Hamptonshire the deal [part] 
that on this side the sea was \^ and they were fain [glad] to see 
him. And he fared [went] one- night from the wick [dweUing 
or camp] to ^glea, and after that one night to Ethandun, and 
there fought with all the host and put them to flight, and rode 
after them to their work [fortress] and there sat fourteen nights. 
And the army sold [gave] him hostages and mickle oaths, and 
eke they promised him that their King should receive baptism.^^ 

happened. But no old writer distinctly says so, and indeed the two storie? 
come from different writers. 

1 That v/ord is still used in Scotland. 

'■^ Gu^^fcma^ from ^//q (gnth), vvdiich means battle^ and/a/ia (like the Ger- 
man or High-Dutch /??////<?), a baitp.er. It is the same Avord as gojifanon 
or gonfalon^ whence gonfaloiier, the title of a magistrate at Florence long 
after. 

'•^ yEiJielinga-ig^ the isle of the ^^thelings or Princes. 

^ EcgberhVs sto/ie, that is Brixton Deverell in Wiltshire. You see how 
the name has been cut short. 

^ That is, those vrho had not fled beyond sea for fear of the Danes. 

^ In Old-English /////rt'//^/ ox fulhiht^ ivomfullian^ to wash or make clean 



HOW ENGLAND BECAME ONE KINGDOM. 123 

And this they fulfilled. And three weeks after came the King 
Guthrum with thirty of the men that in the host were worthiest, 
at Aller, that is near Athelney. And him the King received at 
liis baptism/ and his chrisom-loosing^ was at Wedmore. And 
he was twelve nights with the King, and he honoured him and 
his feres [companions] with mickie fee [money]." 

Thus you see how soon King Alfred's good luck came back 
to him again. And I do not doubt that you are the more 
pleased to hear the tale, because all this happened not very far 
from our own home. It was in the woods and marshes of 
Somersetshire that Alfred took shelter, and the Sumorssetas 
were among the first who came to his help after Easter. But 
we will take things a little in order. You see the first fighting 
was in Devonshire, where the Raven was taken. This was a 
famous banner of the Danes, said to have been worked by the 
daughters of Ragnar Lodbrog. It was thought to have wonder- 
ful powers, so that they could tell by the way in which the 
raven held his wings whether they would win or not in battle. 
.Ethelweard tells us that the Danes besieged Odda the Alder- 
man of Devonshire, and adds that, though their King was 
killed, still the Danes kept the battle-place. You see the tim.e 
of utter distress lasted only from soon after Twelfth-night to 
Easter, and even during that time the taking of the Raven 
must have cheered the English a good deal. After Easter 
things begin to mend, when Alfred built his fort at Athelney 
and began to skirmish with the Danes, and seven wxeks later 
came the great victory at Ethandun, which delivered Wessex. 
You must remember that, at this time, all the low country of 
Somersetshire, Sedgmoor and the other moors, as w^e call them 
now, was covered with water, or was at least quite marshy, 
so that any ground a little higher than the rest was really an 
island. You know hov/ to this day very few people live quite 

ike a fiillei-. So baptize is from the Greek ^u.-kt^iv or ^airTLC^Lu, to dip, 
and in High-Dutch to baptize is tau/en, which vrord you will see, if you 
liange the letters rightly, is the same as our dip. 
1 That is, was his godfather. 

^ That is, he laid aside the chrisom or white garment (from Greek xP^^^'y 
to anoint, whence the name of Christ) which a newly baptized person wore 
for a certain time. 



124 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

down on the moors, but the towns and villages, and even most 
of the separate houses, are all built either on such islands, or 
else on the slopes of the larger hills, as the villages between 
Wells and Axbridge cling, as it were, to the side of Mendip. 
Such islands were often chosen, as I think I told you before, 
for building monasteries, and they were often useful in time 
of war, when men could take shelter in such an island, where 
it \vas hard for their enemies to get at them. Thus you will 
find that, in later times, the Isle of Ely and other such places 
served as a shelter to the English who were fighting against 
the Normans,^ and so it was when King Alfred made his 
fort at Athelney. Then, when he thought he was strong 
enough, he left the low ground and went up the hills, and 
gathered his men together at Ecgbrihtesstan or Brixton, 
which is in Wiltshire, near Warminster. Then he marched, 
still north-east, to Ethan dun, that is Edington, not far from 
Trowbridge and Westbury, where he fought the great battle. 
At Edington there is a very fine church, but that was not 
built till many hundred years after Alfred's time, namely 
in the reign of Edward the Third. Some say that the white 
horse which is cut in the side of the chalk hills near there 
was cut then, that men might remember the great battle of 
Ethandun. But it has been altered in modern times to make 
it look more like a real horse. There is another figure of 
a white horse near Shrivenham, which has not been altered 
at all, but is very old and rude, so that you might hardly 
know that it was meant for a horse at all. Whether either 
of them has really anything to do with King Alfred I do not 
pretend to say. Perhaps the one near Shrivenham may be a 
great deal older than Alfred's time, as it is very like the figures 
of horses on some of the old British coins. 

But all this time Alfred seems to have kept his head-quarters 
at Athelney, for it was at AUer close to Athelney that 
Guthorm came to be baptized. Thence they went to Wedmore, 
because there the West-Saxon Kings had a palace. There the 
W^ise Men came together, and Alfred and Guthorm Cor, to 
give him the name by which he was baptized, ^thelstan) 

1 And later still, with the followers of Earl Simon of Montfort after his 
death. 



HOW EXGLAXD BECAME ONE KIXGDOM, 125 

made a treaty. Guthorm-^thelstan was to leave Wessex, 
but he was to keep East-Anglia, which he had already, and 
the north-eastern part of Mercia. The boundary ran along 
the Thames to the mouth of the Lea, then by Bedford 
and the river Ouse to the old Roman road called W^atling- 
street. The south-western part of Mercia was to remain to 
Alfred. That is to say, speaking roughly, Alfred recovered 
that part of Mercia which had been originally West-Saxon and 
which was only conquered by the Angles in the seventh and 
eighth centuries. But you see that the Danes now got much 
the larger part of England, but Alfred contrived to keep 
London. All Northumberland and East-Anglia, most part of 
Essex, and the larger part of Mercia, thus fell to the Danes. 
The part of Mercia that Alfred kept he did not altogether 
join on to Wessex ; he did not keep it immediately in his 
own hands as he did Wessex ; West-Saxon Mercia, as we 
may call it, was still governed by its own Alderman, who held 
his own Assembly of AVise Men. But then the Alderman of 
the Mercians was now named by the King of the West-Saxons. 
One ^Ethelred, wdio liad been Alderman of the Hwiccas, was 
now made Alderman of all the West-Saxon part of Mercia, 
and Alfred gave him in marriage his daughter .Ethelfi^d, who 
was called the Lady of the Mercians, and of whom you will 
hear agam. 

We shall find that Guthorm-.Ethelstan did not always keep 
the treaty of Wedmore quite so well as he should have done. 
Still this treaty was very much better kept than any treaty with 
the Danes had ever been kept before. In 879 the army went 
av\-ay from Chippenham to Cirencester ; that is, they vrent out 
of Wessex into JNIercia, though not as yet into their own part 
of Mercia. At Cirencester ihey ** sat " for a year, seemingly 
by Alfred's leave, as we do not read of any fighting or of any 
mischief being done. Indeed some accounts say that only those 
of the Danes stayed who chose to become Christians, and that 
the rest went away into Gaul under a famous leader of theirs 
named Hasting. Anyhow, in 880 they wxnt quite away into 
what was now their own land of East-Angha, and divided it 
among themselves. Tlius Alfred had quite cleared his own 
Kingdom from the Danes, though he was obliged to leave so 



126 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN^ 

much of the island in their hands. And even through all 
these misfortunes, the Kingdom of Wessex did in some sort 
become greater. For there was now no longer a King of 
the Mercians, but a great part of Mercia was governed by an 
Alderman, who was not only the man of the King of the West- 
Saxons, as the later Kings of the Mercians had been, but was 
appointed by him, and was in fact only a great magistrate 
acting under his orders. Remember that in 880, when Alfred 
had done so many great things, he was still only thirty-one 
years old. 

I have now finished what I may call the second Danish 
War, and there was now peace for several years. Perhaps then 
this is the best place to bring in one or two stories about 
Alfred which are worth remembering in one way, whether they 
are true or false. For it at least shows how much people always 
remembered and thought of Alfred, that there should be so many 
more stories told of him than of almost any other of the old 
Kings. The only King of whom anything like so many stories 
are told is Edgar, and the stories which are told of Edgar are 
by no means so much to his credit as the stories which are told 
of Alfred. 

One story is that Alfred, wishing to know what the Danes 
were about and how strong they were, set out one day from 
Athelney in the disguise of a minstrel or juggler, and went 
into the Danish camp, and stayed there several days, amusing 
the Danes with his playing, till he had seen all that he wanted, 
and then went back without any one finding him out. Now 
there is nothing actually impossible in this story, but we do 
not find it in any writer earlier than William of Malmesbury, 
who lived in the tvv^elfth century. And it is the sort of story 
which one finds turning up in different forms in different ages 
and countries. For instance, exactly the same story is told of 
a Danish King Anlaf, of whom you will hear presently. So 
it is one of those things which you cannot at all believe for 
certain. 

This is what you may call a soldier's story, while some of 
the others are rather what monks and clergymen would like to 
tell. Thus there is a tale which is told in a great many 
different ways, but of which the following is the oldest shape. 



HOW EXGLAND BECAME ONE KEVGDOM. 127 



Now King Alfred was driven from his Kingdom by die 
Danes, and he lay hid for three years in the isle of Glaston- 
bury.- And it came to pass on a day that all his folk were 
gone out to fish, save only Alfred himself and his wife and one 
servant whom he loved. And there came a pilgrim^ to the 
King, and begged for food. And the King said to his servant, 
'' What food have we in the house ? " And his servant answered, 
" My Lord, we have but one loaf and a little wine." Tlien the 
King gave thanks to God, and said, " Give half of the loaf and 
half of the Avine to this poor pilgrim." So the servant did as 
his lord commanded him, and gave to the pilgrim half of the 
loaf and half of the wine, and the pilgrim gave great thanks 
to the King. And when the servant returned, he found the 
loaf whole, and the wine as much as there had been aforetime. 
And he greatly w^ondered, and he wondered also how the 
pilgrim had come into the isle, for that no man could come 
there save by vrater, and the pilgrim had no boat. And the 
King greatly wondered also. And at the ninth hour came 
back the folk who had gone to fish. And they had three boats 
full of fish, and they said, '" Lo, we have caught more fish this 

1 I have seen in many books so much of this story told as people now- 
adays think possible, namely the story of Alfred's charity to the poor 
man. Now it is quite possible that this may be true, and that the rest is an 
addition which has grown round about it. But we have no evidence that 
it is so, and we have no right to take a piece of a story by itself in this 
w^ay. The writers who tell us one part tell us the rest, and, if we tell the 
story at all, we should tell the whole story. I therefore tell it simply as a 
legend, found only in writers who wrote long after the time. Some of it 
may be true, but it is not fair to pick out just so much as v\'e think possible, 
and to tell that much as if it were certainly true. 

2 Here you will at once see two mistakes. Alfred was not hid for three 
years, and it v/as not at Glastonbury that he was hid. But the Life of vSaint 
Cuthbert from which the story comes, was written in the north of England, 
and there they had no doubt heard of so famous a place as Glastonbur}-, 
but knew nothing of Athelney. 

^ The waiter, by speaking of a pilgrim, clearly shows that he was think- 
ing of Glastonbury rather than of Athelney, as there was no monastery at 
Athelney yet. 



128 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN, 

day than in all the three years that we have tarried in this island." 
And the King was glad, and he and his folk were merry ; yet 
he pondered much upon that which had come to pass. And 
wlien night came, the King went to his bed with Ealhswith his 
wife. And the Lady slept, but the King lay awake and thought 
of all that had come to pass by day. And presently he saw a 
great light, like the brightness of the sun, and he saw an old 
man with black hair, clothed in priest's garments, and with a 
mitre on his head, and holding in his right hand a book of the 
Gospels adorned with gold and gems. And the old man blessed 
the King, and the King said unto him, " Who art thou ? " And 
he answered, '' Alfred, my son, rejoice ; for I am he to whom 
thou didst this day give thine alms, and I am called Cuthberht 
the soldier of Christ. Nov/ be strong and very courageous, 
and be of joyful heart, and hearken diligently to the things 
which I say unto thee ; for henceforth I will be thy shield and 
thy friend, and I will watch over thee and over thy sons after 
thee. And now I will tell thee what thou must do. Rise up 
early in the morning, and blow thine horn thrice, that thine 
enemies may hear it and fear, and by the ninth hour thou shalt 
have around thee five hundred men harnessed for the battle. 
And this shall be a sign unto thee that thou mayest believe. 
And after seven days thou shalt have by God's gift and my help 
all the folk of this land gathered unto thee upon the mount 
that is called Assandun.^ And thus shalt thou fight against 
thine enemies, and doubt not that thou shalt overcome them. 
Be thou therefore glad of heart, and be strong and vely coura- 
geous, and fear not, for God hath given thine enemies into 
thine hand. And He hath given thee also all this land and 
the Kingdom of thy fathers, to thee and to thy sons and to thy 
sons' sons after thee. Be thou faithful to me and to my folk, 
because that unto thee is given all the land of Albion. Be 
thou righteous, because thou art chosen to be the King of all 
Britain. So may God be merciful unto thee, and I will be thy 
friend, and none of thine enemies shall ever be able to overcome 

1 The writer evidently confounds Ethandiin (Edington), the place of 
Alfred's victory, with Ascesdun (Ashdown), where you will remember that 
one of yEthelred's battles was fought, and perhaps with the real Assandun 
where the great battle was long after in ioi6. 



HOW ENGLAND BECAME ONE KINGDOM, 129 

thee." Then was King Alfred glad at heart and he was strong 
and very courageous, for that he knew that he would overcome 
his enemies by the help of God and Saint Cuthberhthis patron. 
So in the morning he arose, and sailed to the land, and blew 
his horn three times, and when his friends heard it they rejoiced, 
and when his enemies heard it they feared. And by the ninth 
hour, according to the word of the Lord, there were gathered 
unto him five hundred men of the bravest and dearest of his 
friends. And he spake unto them and told them all that God 
had said unto them by the mouth of his servant Cuthberht, and 
he told them that, by the gift of God and by the help of Saint 
Cuthberht, they would overcome their enemies and win back 
their own land. And he bade them, as Saint Cuthberht had 
taught him, to be pious towards God and righteous towards men. 
And he bade his son Edward who was by him to be faithful to 
God and Saint Cuthberht and so he should always have the 
victory over his enemies. So they went forth to battle and 
smote their enemies and overcame them, and King Alfred took 
the Kingdom of all Britain,^ and he ruled well and wisely over 
the just and the unjust for the rest of his days. 



Now is there any truth in all this story ? I think there is 
thus much, that Alfred, for some reason or other, thought he 
was under the special protection of Saint Cuthbert. I have 
two reasons for thinking so ; first, because it is rather remark- 
able that a Northumbrian waiter should go out of his way to tell 
so long a story about a West-Saxon King, unless he really had 
something to do with his own Saint. And secondly, is not our 
parish church in Wells called Saint Cuthbert's ? Noav it is 
not often that we find a church in the south called after a saint 
who is hardly known except in the north. There must be some 
special reason for it, and if, w^hen Alfred was in Somersetshire, 
any dream or anything else made him think that Saint Cuthbert 
was helping him, we can understand why either he or other 
men after him should call a church in that neighbourhood by 
the name of a saint whom othenvise they were not likely to 

1 The writer seems to have had very little notion of the division of the 
land between Alfred and Guthorm. . 

K 



I30 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN'. 

know much about. But I will now go on to things- which are 
more certain. 

For several years after 880 there was peace in the land, and for 
a good many more years still there was much less fighting than 
there had been before. It was no doubt at this time that Alfred 
was able to do all those things for the good of his people of which 
we hear so much. He had now more time than either before 
or after for making his laws, writing his books, founding his 
monasteries, and doing all that he did. You may wonder how 
he found time to do so much ; but it was by the only way by 
which anybody can do anything, namely by never wasting his 
time, and by having fixed times of the day for everything. 
Alfred did not, like most other writers of that time, write in 
Latin, so that hardly anybody but the clergy could read or 
understand what he wrote. He loved our own tongue, and 
was especially fond of the Old-English songs, and all that he 
wrote he wrote in English that all his people might understand. 
His works were chiefly translations from Latin books ; what 
wx should have valued most of all, his note-book or hand-book, 
containing his remarks on various matters, is lost. He trans- 
lated into English the History of Baeda, the History of Orosius, 
some of the works of Pope Gregory the Great, and the Conso- 
lation of Philosophy by Boethius. Perhaps you will ask why 
he did not rather translate some of the great and famous 
Greek and Latin writers of earlier times. Now we may be 
sure that King Alfred did not understand Greek at all ; very 
few people in those days in the West of Europe knew any 
Greek, except those who needed to use the language for deahng 
with the men in the Eastern Empire who still spoke it. Indeed 
Alfred complains that, when he came to the Crown, very few 
people, even among the clergy, understood even Latin at all 
well. And as for Latin books, no doubt Alfred thought that 
the writings of Christians would be more edifying to his people 
than those of the old heathens. He chose the History of 
Orosius, as a general history of the world, and that of Baeda, as 
a particular history of England. Boethius was a Roman Consul 
in the beginning of the sixth century, who was put to death by 
the great Theodoric, King of the East-Goths. While he was in 
prison he wrote the book which King Alfred translated He 



HOW ENGLAND BECAME ONE KINGDOM. 131 

seems not really to have been a Christian, at least there is not 
a single Christian expression in his book. But people fancied 
that he was not only a Christian, but a saint and a martyr, most 
likely because Theodoric, who put him to death, was not an 
Orthodox Christian, but an Arian. Alfred, in translating his 
books, did not always care to translate them quite exactly, but 
he often altered and put in things of his own, if he thought he 
could thus make them more improving. So in translating 
Boethius, he altered a good deal, to make the wise heathen 
speak like a Christian. So in translating Orosius, where Orosius 
gives an account of the world, Alfred greatly enlarged the 
account of all the northern part of Europe, of which Alfred 
naturally knew much more than Orosius did. There was one 
Othhere, a Norwegian whale-tisher, whom Alfred employed to 
visit all the northern countries, and who brought him an account 
of all that he saw, which Alfred added to the account of Orosius. 
Besides writing himself, Alfred encouraged learned men, both 
Englishmen and men from other countries, to help him in wTit- 
ing and teaching his people. Such was Asser the Welshman, 
a priest from Saint David's, who wrote Alfred's Life ; such were 
Grimbald from Flanders and John the Old-Saxon, that is, a 
Saxon from Germany, as distinguished from one of Alfred's 
own West-Saxons in Britain. 

Alfred was also very careful in the government of his King- 
dom, especially in seeing that justice was properly administered. 
So men said of him in their songs, much as they had long 
before said of King Edwin in Northumberland, that he hung 
up golden bracelets by the road-side, and that no man dared to 
steal them. In his collection of laws, he chiefly put in order 
the laws of the older Kings, not adding many of his own, be- 
cause he said that he did not know how those who came after 
him might like them. But it is curious that we have fewer 
accounts of meetings of the Wise Men under Alfred himself in 
Wessex than we have of the meetings of those of Mercia under 
Alderman ^thelred. 

King Alfred was very attentive to religious matters, and gave 
great alms to the poor and gifts to churches. He also founded 
two monasteries ; one was at Shaftesbury in Dorsetshire, for 
nuns, of which he made his o^vn daughter ^thelgifu Abbess. 

K 2 



132 OLD ENGLISH HIS TOR V FOR CHILDREN. 

The other was for monks at Athelney ; you can easily see why 
he should build it there. He also sent several embassies to 
Rome, where he got Pope Marinus to grant certain privileges 
to the English School at Rome ; the Pope also sent him what 
was thought to be a piece of the wood of the True Cross, that 
on which our Lord Jesus Christ died. He also sent an em- 
bassy to Jerusalem, and had letters from Abel the Patriarch 
there. And what seems stranger than all, he sent an embassy 
all the way to India, with alms for the Christians there, called 
the Christians of Saint Thomas and Saint Bartholomew. 

Lastly, there seems some reason to think that the Chronicle 
began to be put together in its present shape in Alfred's time, 
and that it was regularly gone on with afterwards, so that from 
the time of Alfred onwards we have a history which was regu- 
larly written down as things happened. 

All these things happened mainly in the middle years of the 
reign of Alfred, when there was so much less fighting than there 
was before and after, and when some years seem to have been 
quite peaceable. Guthorm-^thelstan and his Danes in East- 
Anglia were for some years true to the treaty of Wedmore, and 
the other Danes seem just now to have been busy in invading 
Gaul and other parts of the continent rather than England. 
Also King Alfred had now got a fleet, so that he often met 
them at sea and kept them from landing. This he did in 882, 
and we do not find that any Danes landed again in England 
till 885. In that year part of the army which had been plunder- 
ing along the coasts of Flanders and Holland came over to 
England, landed in Kent, and besieged Rochester. But the 
citizens withstood them bravely, and Alfred gathered an army 
and drove the Danes to their ships. They seem then to have 
gone into Essex and to have plundered there with their ships, 
getting help from the Danes who were settled in East-Anglia 
or such of them as still were heathens.^ Alfred's fleet however 
quite overcame them and took away their treasure, but his fleet 
was again attacked by the East-Anglian Danes and defeated. 
It would seem that in some part of this war Guthorm-^thelstan 
was helped by Hrolf, otherwise called Rolf, Rou, and Rollo, 
the great Northern chief, who afteii\^ards settled in Gaul and 
^ ^thelweard calls them i)agani» 



HOW ENGLAAW BECAME ONE KINGDOM, 133 

founded the Duchy of Normandy, and was the ancestor of 
all the Dukes of the Normans of whom you will hear so much 
afterwards. But Rolf did not settle in Gaul till some years 
after Alfred was dead. 

It was about the same time, seemingly in the same year 885, 
that Alfred's authorit}^ was, according to Asser, greatly increased 
in another part of Britain. A little time before him there had 
been a very powerful prince in Wales called Rhodri Mawr or 
Roderick the Great, under whom Wales was much stronger and 
more united than it had often been before or than it ever was 
again. But in 877 Rhodri died, being killed by ''the Saxons," 
according to the Welsh Chronicle. After him his dominions 
were divided among his sons, who had so many quarrels with 
one another, and with other Welsh princes and with the English 
on their borders, that several of the Welsh princes thought it 
best to put themselves under the King of the West-Saxons as 
their Overlord. Thus the Kings of Dyfed (Pembrokeshire), 
Morgan wg (Glamorgan), Gwent (Monmouth), and Brecknock 
all became Alfred's vassals, and so did Anarawd the son of 
Rhodri himself, who is said to have agreed to be the King 
even as Alderman ^thelred and the Mercians were. 

In '^'^(y Alfred repaired London, which seems to have been 
much damaged in the Danish wars, and gave it over to Alder- 
man T^thelred as part of his government. 

From this time till the year 892 the Chronicle has nothing at 
all to tell us about things in England, except a few very small 
matters ; it really tells us more of what was going on in other 
countries than in our own. For some very important things 
happened about this time, which I may as well tell you. The 
last thing that you heard about foreign parts was that the great 
Empire of Charles the Great was divided into three Kingdoms 
and sometimes more, the Emperor having a certain nominal 
supremacy over all. But about this time, in the year 885, the 
whole Empire, or nearly so, was joined together again under 
the Emperor Charles the Fat. He was son of Lewis, King of 
the East-Franks, whom I told you of before, and great-grandson 
of Charles the Great. You see how one Charles was great in 
mind and the other only great in body. I say the whole 
Empire or nearly so, because there was one Boso, who was 



134 OLD ENGLISH HISTOR V FOR CHILDREN. 

not of the house of the Karlings, who was King in Burgundy, ^ 
between the Saone, the Rhone, and the Alps. But Charles 
was Emperor and King of Italy and King of the East and West 
Franks. But his people despised him, and in 888 he was de- 
posed, and the Empire was again divided, and was never joined 
together again. Germany and France, as we may now perhaps 
begin to call them (though it is better to wait for another 
hundred years), and Italy were never all joined together again. 
The East-Franks chose Arnulf, who was of the house of the 
Karlings, and who was afterwards crowned Emperor. But the 
West-Franks chose Odo, Count of Paris, because he had been 
very valiant in resisting the Danes, and because his city, lying 
on the Seine, was very important in defending the country 
against them. In Italy two Kings, Berenger and Wido, disputed 
the crown. Thus counting Burgundy there were four King- 
doms. There now comes a hundred years of great confusion in 
the Western Kingdom. Count Odo was the forefather of all 
the Kings of France since 987; I say since 987, because it was 
not till then that the crown was fully fixed in his family. 
Between 888 and 987, there were some Kings of the House of 
Odo of Paris and some of the House of the Karlings, whose 
city was Laon. In the Eastern Kingdom or Germany Arnulfs 
son Lewis was the last King of the male line of the Karlings. 
The crown then went into other families, though some of the 
Kings were descended from Charles the Great through females. 
One may say that after Charles the Fat there was no regular 
Emperor for nearly eighty years. Arnulf was crowned Emperor, 
and so were some of the Kings of Italy, but there was no 
Emperor acknowledged by every body till Otto the Great in 
963. He joined the Kingdoms of Germany and Italy and 
was crowned Emperor at Rome. And from that time it w^as 
always held that the man who was chosen King of Germany 
had also a right to be crowned King of Italy at Milan and 
Emperor of the Romans at Rome. 

I have gone on thus far about foreign matters, because you 

1 The name Burgundy has many meanings at different times. Besides 
this Kingdom of Burgundy, which was often divided into two, there was 
the Duchy of Burgundy, the Duke of which was a vassal of the King of the 
West- Franks. 



HOW ENGLAND BECAME ONE KINGDOM, 135 

will find that we are getting to a time when England had much 
more to do with other countries than it had before, and several 
of the Kings of the East and West Franks will be spoken of in 
our English histor}^ as we go on. Also just at this time, as you 
have already seen, the same fleets of Danes were attacking both 
England and the opposite coasts, and, if they were driven 
away from one country, they generally crossed on to the other. 
Thus in 891 King Arnulf gained a great victory over the 
Northmen at Lowen in Brabant, which in French is called 
Louvain, after which they did very little mischief in Germany. 
But next year the same army came from ^^ the east Kingdom " 
\tham east rice] to Boulogne^ in Picardy, whence they came 
over to England. So the Danish wars began again in 893. 

For five years now there was a great deal of fighting ; and 
we have very minute accounts, showing that the w^hole history 
must have been A\Titten down at the time. But I do not think 
that I need tell these wars at quite the same length as the wars 
in the early part of Alfred's reign, both because they are not 
nearly so famous and because they have not so nmch to do 
with our own part of England. Two large bodies of Danes, 
one of them under a famous chief called Hasting, landed in 
Kent in 893 and fixed themselves in fortresses which they built. 
And the Danes who had settled in Northumberland and East- 
Anglia helped them, though they had all sworn oaths to King 
Alfred, and those in East-Anglia had also given hostages. 
King Guthonii-^thelstan had nothing to do w^ith this, for he 
had died in the year 890. There was a great deal of fighting 
all over the south of England throughout 894, and the King had 
to go constantly backwards and forwards to keep up with the 
Danes. One time Alfred took a fort at Appledore in Kent, in 
which were the wife and two sons of Hasting. Now Hasting 
had not long before given oaths and hostages to Alfred, and 
the two boys had been baptized, the King being godfather to 
one of them and Alderman ^thelred to the other. But Hast- 
ing did not at all keep to his oath, but went on plundering all 
the same. Still, when the boys and their mother were taken, 
Alfred would not do them any harm, but gave them up again to 

1 Bunan in the Chronicle, from the Latin Bononia. The name is the 
same as that of Bologna in Italy. 



136 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

Hasting. A little while after, while the King was fighting at 
Exeter with one party of them, another great host, many of 
them b: iiig from Northumberland and East-Anglia, went all 
the way up the Thames and then crossed to the Severn and 
went up the Severn. So Alderman ^thelred, and -^thelhelm 
Alderman of the Wilsaetas, and another Alderman, ^thelnoth, 
who I suppose was Alderman of the Sumorsaetas, went against 
them with all the men "from ilk borough^ by east of Parret, 
both by east of Selwood and by west, both by north of Thames 
and west of Severn, and eke some deal [part] of the North- 
Welsh ^ kin." They followed the Danes up the Severn, as far 
as Buttington in what is now called Montgomeryshire, where they 
besieged them, and after a while fought a battle and defeated 
them. But a great many of them got away again into East- 
Anglia, and there left their wives, children, and spoil, and 
marched back as fast as they could to Chester. I mention this, 
because the Chronicle adds, what sounds very strange, that 
Chester was now a deserted place. This was still in 894. 
There was a great deal of fighting almost all over England, 
all the next three years. At last in 897 we read that Alfred 
made some improvements in his ships. 

"Then had Alfred King timbered [built] long ships against 
the cescs^) they were full-nigh twice as long as the others j some 
had sixty oars, some mo ; they were both swifter and steadier 
and eke higher than the others ; they were neither on the Frisian 
shape nor on the Danish, but as himself thought that they useful 
might be." 

These new ships seem to have done good service, though 
one time they got aground, seemingly because they were so 
large, and the Danes were therefore able to sail out before them. 
The Chronicle says that the ships were not of the Frisian build, 
but King Alfred had many Frisians in his service. The Frisians, 
you should know, are the people along the north-coast, from 

1 Burh, byrig, borozigh, burg^ that is any fortified place, great or small. 

2 "North- Welsh" here does not mean what we now call North-Welsh 
as opposed to South- Welsh, but rather the Welsh of what we call Wales 
generally, as opposed to those of Cornwall. They would doubtless be Alfred's 
new Welsh vassals, who were chiefly in what we now call South-Whales. 

^ The Danish long ships, from cesc^ that is ash. 



HOW ENGLAND BECAME ONE KINGDOM. 137 

Holland up to Denmark. They are our nearest kinsmen on 
the continent, and speak a language nearer to English than any 
other ; in Alfred's time most likely the two languages were quite 
the same. These sea-fights along the south-coast were nearly the 
last things that we hear of in Alfred's reign. The crews of two 
Danish ships were brought to Winchester to Alfred and there 
hanged. One cannot blame him for this, as these Danes were 
mere pirates, not engaged in any lawful war, and many of them 
had been spared, and had made oaths to Alfred, and had broken 
them, over and over again. 

This was in 897 ; the rest of King Alfred's reign seems to 
have been spent in peace. In 898 the Chronicle tells us only 
that Alderman ^thelhelm died, and also Heahstan or Ealhstan, 
Bishop of London. In 899 and 900 it tells us nothing at all. 
In 901 the great King died himself. He was then only fifty- 
two years old. 

Alfred's wife, the Lady Ealhswith, lived a little while after her 
husband, till 903 or 905. They had five children, two sons, 
Edward, the next King, who had already begun to distinguish 
himself in the wars with the Danes, and ^thelweard. Of their 
three daughters you have heard of two, ^thelfi^d, the Lady 
of the Mercians, the mfe of the great Alderman ^thelred, and 
^thelgifu, Abbess of Shaftesbury. The third was ^Ifthryth, 
who married Baldwin the Second, Count of Flanders, the son 
of the first Baldwin and Judith. From this marriage descended 
Matilda, the wife of William the Conqueror, and thus it w^as 
that William's sons, though not W^illiam himself, were de- 
scended, in a kind of way, from Alfred, as they descended 
through Judith from Charles the Great. 

King Alfred was buried at Winchester in the New Minster 
which he himself began to found and which was finished by his 
son Edward. It was then close to the Old Minster, that is the 
cathedral church. After^vards it was moved out of the city and 
was called Hyde Abbey. But you cannot see King Alfred's 
grave there now, because everything has been destroyed, and 
the bones of the great King have been turned out, to make 
room for a prison. 



138 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

§ 6. The Reign of King Edward the Elder. 
901—925. 

When King Alfred died, the Wise Men chose his son Ead- 
weard or Edward to be King. It was not Hkely that they 
should choose anybody but the great King's own son, and one 
who had already shown himself valiant in his father's wars. But 
you may remember that ^thelred the eldest brother of Alfred 
left children, and his eldest son, according to the present law, 
would have been King instead of Alfred himself. But I have 
often told you that this was not the law in the old time, but 
that the Wise Men chose whom they would in the royal house. 
I tell you this again, because there was one ^thehvald an 
^theling, a son of ^thelred, who seems to have thought that 
he ought to be King. So he seized on two of the King's 
houses, Wimborne in Dorsetshire and Tweoxnam or Twyn- 
ham, now called Christ Church, in Hampshire. But King 
Edward came against him with an army. Now the JEtheling 
had shut himself up in the town of Wimborne and said that he 
would live or die there. But when King Edward came near, 
he fled away, and that so fast that he could not be caught. 
This was a great pity, as he soon began to do a great deal of 
mischief. For he got away to the Danes in Northumberland 
and they made him their King. 

King Edward, we are told, was as good a soldier but not so 
good a scholar as his father Alfred. We do not hear nearly so 
much as in Alfred's time of invasions of the Danes from abroad, 
but nearly all Edward's reign was taken up with fighting with 
the Danes v/ho had settled in the north and east of England. 
They were always submitting and always rebelling. But in the 
end King Edward made himself lord over them and over the 
Scots and Welsh too. So King Edward was the first King of 
the West-Saxons who was Lord of all Britain. There was now^ 
no other English King, and the Kings and Princes of the 
Danes, Scots, and Welsh were all his vassals. So from his 
time our Kings no longer called themselves Kings of the West- 
Saxons or of the Saxons, but Kings of the Anglo-Saxons^ or of 

1 Always remember that this does not mean Saxons in England^ but 
Angles and Saxons, the nation made up by the union of the two. 



HOW ENGLAND BECAME ONE KINGDOM, 139 

the English, and sometimes Kings or Emperors^ of all Britain. 
But I do not find that King Edward speaks of himself in this 
last way, as indeed he hardly could, as he was not Lord of all 
Britain till quite the end of his reign. He commonly calls 
himself Rex Aiigol-Saxoniwi or Rex Angloruvi. 

In the first two or three years of Edward's reign nothing 
very great happened. There was a little fighting between the 
Danes and the Kentishmen, the New Minster at Winchester 
was hallowed, the Lady Ealhswith, the King's mother, died, and 
such like. But in 904 ^thelwald began to give much trouble. 
He came with a fleet to Essex, and the people submitted to 
him, and the next year he persuaded the Danes in East-Anglia 
to break the peace and invade Mercia. Indeed they got into 
Wessex itself, for they came as far as Cricklade in Wiltshire and 
thence they went on to Bred on in Worcestershire. Then they 
went home. But King Edward went and harried all the Danish 
land between the dyke and the Ouse, that is the w^estern part 
of East-Anglia, Cambridgeshire and thereabouts, and then 
turned about to go home. But the Kentishmen would not 
turn to come, though the King by his messengers bade them 
seven times. So the Danes came and surrounded them, and I 
suppose I must say defeated them, because the Danes kept the 
battle-field. But the real victory was on the side of the Enghsh, 
for many more of the Danes were slain than of themselves, 
and among them Eoric the Danish King of East-Anglia, -^thel- 
wald the ^theling, and others of their chief men. But the 
Kentishmen lost their two Aldermen- Sigulf (Sigewoilf) and 
Sighelm, and others of their chief men also. 

The next year, 906, King Edward made peace with the 
Danes both in East-Anglia and in Northumberland, and we are 
told that the peace was made as King Edward thought good. 
AVe have the terms of the treaty drawn up between Edvvard and 

^ Sometimes Imperator, very often Basileus. This was because the 
Roman Emperors at Constantinople called themselves ^acriX^vs, and 
because our Kings wished to say that they were Emperors and not only 
Kings, and that they owed no kind of service to the Emperors either of 
East or West. 

- Kent has two Bishops, Canterbury and Rochester, because in old 
times there were two little kingdoms of East and West Kent. Most likely 
each of them now had its own Alderman. 



I40 OLD ENGLISH HISTOR V FOR CHILDREN, 

Guthorm, that is, no doubt, the son of Eoric and grandson of 
the old Guthorm-^thelstan. Laws are put forth in the name 
of the two Kings, and both speak as Christians and command 
their people to give up all worship of idols. I do not know 
why the Chronicle should mention under this year the death of 
Alfred the town-reeve of Bath. I suppose he must have made 
himself remarkable in some way ; so, as it belongs to our own 
part of the world, I tell it you. 

The war began again in 910, 1 hardly know how, for in that 
year we find King Edward attacking the Danes, though it is 
not till the next year that we read that the Danes broke the 
peace. So at least it stands in the Chronicle, but Florence 
makes them break a peace both years, which is certainly 
most likely. Anyhow in 910 King Edward won a battle over 
them at Tettenhall in Staffordshire, and in 911 he gained a 
still greater victory at Wodnesfield in the same shire. In 
910^ too w^e find the beginning of a system which goes on 
through all the rest of Edward's reign. In that year we read 
that ^thelflsed the Lady of the Mercians fortified Bramsbury, 
and from that time we find both the King and the Lady 
going on fortifying towns and castles almost every year. We 
find ^thelflaed mentioned and not ^thelred her husband ; 
most likely he was ill or getting old, for he died the next 
year, and ^thelfl^d then ruled Mercia herself, only King 
Edward took London and Oxford into his own hands. For 
some years after the King and the Lady went on busily 
building in various places, chiefly along the line of frontier 
exposed to the Danes, as at Bridgenorth, Tamw^orth, Warwick, 
Hertford, Wltham in Essex, and other places. No doubt all 
this was a great defence to the country. From this time we 
find the King and the Lady attacking the Danes instead ot 
waiting to be attacked, and the only invasion of the Danes 
during these years is, not from the Danes settled in England, 
but from others who came from the south, no doubt out of 
Gaul. 

I ought now to tell you how in 913 a very remarkable event 
took place in Gaul. A large body of the Danes or Northmen 

1 Or perhaps a little before, as in 907 we read that Chester was set up 
again : you may remember that in Alfred's time Chester was lying desolate. 



HO IV ENGLAND BECAME ONE KINGDOM. 141 

settled there, something in the same way as Guthorm had done 
in East-Angha. Charles the Simple who was of the house of the 
Great Charles, but who was very unlike him, w^as then King of the 
West-Franks, and reigned at Laon, and Robert was Count of 
Paris and w^as called Duke of the French.^ King Charles married 
Eadgifu, a daughter of our King Edward. Duke Robert was 
afterwards himself King for a little while. There was, as I said 
before, at this time a very famous leader of the Northmen called 
Rolf, who had done great damage both in England and iif Gaul. 
He is said to have been called Rolf Ganger, that is the Goer 
or Walker, because he was too tall to ride, for when he sat on one 
of the small horses of the North, his feet touched the ground. 
After going about the world for many years, Rolf seemed 
inclined to settle somewhere, so King Charles and Duke Robert 
agreed with him that, if he would become a Christian and leave 
off ravaging the rest of the countiy, he should have a great 
province to hold in fief of the King, and should marry the 
King's daughter. So Rolf agreed to this, and was baptized by 
the name of Robert, after Duke Robert his godfather. But 
he still was better known as Rolf, just as we do not call 
Guthorm by his new name of ^thelstan. In Latin Rolf be- 
comes J^ollo and in French Rou. The story is told that when 
Rolf was to do homage for his Duchy he was ordered to kneel 
and kiss the King's feet. But Rolf said that he would not kiss 
the feet of any man, and told one of his soldiers to do it for 
him. The soldier did it in a kind of way, not by kneeling 
down, but by catching up the King's foot and lifting it to his 
mouth, so that the King and his throne were nearly upset. You 
may suppose that this was not the regular way of doing homage, 
and that King Charles and his nobles did not much like it, but 

1 It is not easy to say when, in talking of Gaul or West-France, one 
should leave off saying Franks and begin to say French, Perhaps the best 
way is to say Franks as long as one is talking of the old Karling Kings at 
Laon, and French when one speaks of the new Dukes and Kings at 
Paris. For the Karlings were Germans and kept on speaking German to 
the last, while the Paris family were the ancestors of the later French 
Kings, and they seem to have spoken a Romance tongue all through this 
century. When the Paris Kings finally triumphed, we may look on the 
German power and the German tongue as having come to an end in Gaul, 
and modern France as beginning. 



142 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

they were too much afraid of Rolt to say much about it, and 
they were obliged to let it reckon as good homage. So Rolf 
took possession of his Duchy, a territory on each side of the 
Seine, with the city of Rouen for his capital. He and his son 
William Longsword afterwards added greatly to it, till it took in 
six Bishops' sees besides Rouen the Archbishoprick. These are 
Bayeux, Evreux, Lisieux, Seez, Avranches, and Coutances,^ be- 
sides Caen, which became a greater town than any except Rouen, 
though it never was a Bishop's see. This was a very fine and 
rich territory, and it made Rolf and his descendants great 
princes. He was called Duke or Count of the Northmen, and 
his land was the Land of the Northmen (Terra Nortkman?iorum), 
Rolf seems to have ruled very well, and to have done all that 
he could to civilize his people and to undo the damage that 
he had done in past years. And his people gradually left off 
speaking Danish and learned to speak French, so that in the 
time of WilKam, Rolf's son, nobody at Rouen talked Danish 
at all, but it was still spoken at Bayeux. So as Duke AVilliam 
wished his son Richard to speak both tongues, he sent him to 
Bayeux to learn Danish. And as the Danes learned to speak 
French, they softened their name from North7ne7i into Nor?nans, 
and their land began to be called Normandy (Normannia). I 
tell you all this now because we shall hear so much more of 
the Normans and their Dukes, for Rolf and William and Richard 
were all forefathers of the great William, who, a hundred and 
fifty years after this time, became King of the English. 

Now it would seem as if it had something to do with this 
settlement of Rolf in Gaul that not long after, in 915 or 918 
(for the dates differ), a fleet of Danes came from the south, 
perhaps from Britanny. Very likely some of Rolf's people 
did not like settling on land, and so took to their old roving 
life again. Anyhow there came a fleet into the Severn under 
two Earls, Ohter and Hroald, and they did much damage on 
the coast of Wales. But the men of Gloucester and Hereford 
fought against them, and made them give hostages and promise 
to go away out of King Edward's dominions. And King 
Edward kept watch over the whole coast of Somersetshire, 

1 Constantia, ixom the Emperor Constantine or some of his family. It 
is the same name as the other Constantia in Swabia, now Constanz. 



ffOlV ENGLAXD BECAME ONE KINGDOM. 



143 



that they might not land anywhere. They tried to land both at 
Watchet and at Porlock, but they were driven off at both places 
and most of them were killed, except those who could swim to 
their ships. These few went and " sat " on one of the Holms 
the islands at the mouth of the Severn, either the Steep 
Holm or the Flat ;i but they could get nothing to eat, so many 
of them died, and the rest sailed away, first to Dyfed or Pem- 
brokeshire and thence to Ireland. 

This was in 915, and I think it is the last invasion from 
foreign parts during the reign of Edward. We hear once or 
twice of "vikmgs" helping the Danes in England, but not of 
their coming wholly by themselves. For the wars with the 
Danes in England still went on, and the King and the Lady 
were still gaming upon them and building towns and castles. 
Ihus we find that the Lady took Derby in 917 and Leicester 
111 918 and the same year she was treating for the surrender 
of York, when she was taken ill and died at Tamworth and was 
buned at Gloucester, ^thelflsd had ruled Mercia for seven 
years after the death of her husband ^thelred She was a 
worthy daughter of Alfred and a worthy sister of Edward 
Besides her wars with the Danes, she had some fighting witli 
the Welsh, for m 916 she stormed the town of Brecknock, and 
took the wife of the Welsh King prisoner. The Welsh chro- 
mclescall^thelflaid Queen, but she certainly had no such title. 
She and ^the red had no son, but they left a daughter named 
^Ifwyn. If they had left a son. King Edward could hardly 
have helped making him Alderman of the Mercians • but it 
was not usual for women to rule ; ^thelflaed herself was quite 
an exception^ So it is not at all wonderful when we read 
that King Edward did not let his niece ^Ifwyn rule in 
Mercia, but took her away into Wessex in 919. And yet the 
Cnronicle tells it in a sort of complaining way, as if people 
did not think It quite right. Very hkely the Merciarfs still 
hked to have an Alderman of their own, as the next thine 
to having a King of their own. And it might have been 
more generous if Edward had given his niece in marriage to 
1 Some copies of the Chronicle have " ^;-«</««reolice, " Broad ox Flat 
Holm, and some " .S-^.«/««reolice, " which speaks for itself. But why 
either of the Holms should be called Reollc I cannot say ^ 



144 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

some valiant man, just as Alfred had given ^thelflsed herself 
to ^thelred, and had made him Alderman of the Mercians.^ 
But in the long run it was a great gain to have Mercia and 
Wessex more closely joined together, as they were from this 
time. All this time, from 915 onwards. King Edward was 
building his towns and castles. In 915 a Danish chief called 
Thurcytel or Thurkill came to King Edward with many of 
his men, and "sought him to lord;^' and five years after they 
went by sea to '^ Frankland," by King Edward's leave. Did 
they go to join Rolf in his new Duchy of Normandy? Mean- 
while the King went on building at Bedford and Towcester 
and at Wigmore in Herefordshire. At last, in 921, the Danes 
seem to have made a great effort to resist him and to take 
all his towns and castles. So they attacked Bedford and 
Towcester and Wigmore and Maldon, but they were beaten 
and driven away everywhere. In the course of that year 
and the next Thurfrith, the Danish Earl of Northampton, 
submitted to Edward, and so did all the people in Essex 
and East-Anglia and the rest of Mercia, the English people 
who were under the Danes receiving him very gladly. But 
we do not find that King Edward at all oppressed the 
Danes, for, when he built Nottingham, he set both English- 
men and Danes to live in the town. That year, 922, all the 
Welsh Kings came to Edward and "sought him to lord." 
But some say that this was not till after a good deal of fighting, 
in which the Welsh, with some Danes and Irish to help them, 
had tried to get possession of Chester. The next year, 923, 
King Edward built Thelwall in Cheshire, and took Manchester 
"in Northumberland." But we read the same year that Raeg- 
nald (Reginald, Rainald) a Danish King took York, but he 
soon became King Edward's man. In 924 King Edward built 
another fort at Nottingham so as to secure both sides of the 
river Trent, with a bridge across it. Thus he had pretty weh 
all Mercia in his hands. And now we read, 

"And him chose then to father and to lord the King of 
Scots and all the folk of the Scots, and Raegnald and Eadulf 's 

1 According to one story, which however is not in the Chronicle, 
yElfwyn was sought in marriage by a son of the Danish King Guthred. If 
this be true, we can neither wonder at Edward nor blame him. 



' HOW ENGLAND BECAME ONE KINGDOM, 145 

son, and all that in Northumberland dwell, whether English 
or Danish or Northmen or any others \ and eke the King 
of the Strathclyde Welsh and all the Strathclyde Welsh.'' 

Thus did Edward, King of the English, become Lord of 
ALL Britain. Wessex, Kent, and Sussex he had inherited, 
Mercia, Essex, and East-Anglia he and his sister had won back 
from the Danes. Thus much was his own Kingdom. And all 
Northumberland, Wales, Scotland, and Strathclyde did homage 
to him as their Overlord. No one King in Britain had ever 
had so much power. None of the old Bretwaldas had so 
large a country in their own hands, none of them had ex- 
tended their power so completely over the Welsh, and none 
of them, save those who reigned in Northumberland, had any 
power over the Scots at all. From this time the King of 
the English was the Overlord of the Welsh and the Scots, 
just as much as the Emperor and the King of the West-Franks 
were Overlords of any of the princes within their dominions 
who held their Duchies and Counties of them. You must 
well understand this, because otherwise you will get very 
wrong notions of some things in later times. When another 
King Edward, the first of the name after the Norman Con- 
quest, made the Scots and Welsh do homage to him, he was 
not, as many people fancy, doing anything new or demanding 
anything unjust, but was simply defending the rights of his 
Crown which had been handed down to all the Kings of 
the English from the time of the first Edward, the son of 
Alfred. 

The year after he had reached this height of povv^er, the 
great King Edward died at Farndon in Mercia, that is in 
Northamptonshire, and was buried at Winchester. He left 
behind him a great many sons and daughters, most of whom 
became Kings and Queens. Three of his sons, ^thelstan, 
Eadmund, and Eadred, were all Kings of the English. Of 
his daughters five married foreign princes, either in their 
father's time or in their brother ^thelstan's ; another had 
to put up with a Danish King Sihtric in Northumberland ; 
and three became nuns. You know it was not usual in 
those days to marry out of the country, but King ^thel- 
Stan, through the marriages of his sisters, was brother-in-law 

L 



146 OLD ENGLISH HIS TOR V FOR CHILDREN, 

to most of the chief princes of Europe. For, as I think I 
told you, Eadgifu married Charles the Simple, King of the 
West-Franks ; and afterwards, when King Charles was deposed, 
she and her son Lewis took shelter with her father King Edward. 
Another Eadgifu married Lewis, King of Provence or Aries, 
that is the southern part of the Kingdom of Burgundy ; Eadhild 
married Hugh the Great, Duke of the French, son of King 
Robert, whom I mentioned before. And another sister made 
a greater marriage than all. For Henry, King of the East- 
Franks, sent to ^thelstan to ask for one of his sisters in mar- 
riage for his son Otto. So ^thelstan sent him two, Eadgyth 
or Edith and JElfgifu, and bade him choose one for his son 
and give the other to one of his princes. So ^Elfgifu was given 
to a prince near the Alps ; but Otto chose Edith for his wife. 
This was Otto the Great, who was afterwards Emperor, and 
who joined the Empire for ever to the Kingdom of the East- 
Franks, but this was not till after Edith Avas dead, so that she 
never was Empress. Of another sister, Eadburh, men told this 
tale. 



%\t Storg flf ®airbttrlj tlj^ gawgbto of fibfoarir. 

Now when Eadburh, the daughter of King Edward and 
Eadgifu his Lady, was but three years old, it came into the 
King's heart to prove the child, whether she would dwell in the 
world or go out of the world to serve God. So he put on one 
side rings and bracelets and on the other a chalice and a book 
of the Gospels. And the child was brought in the arms of 
her nurse, and King Edward took her on his knees, and he said, 
'^ Now, my child, vviiether of these things wilt thou choose ? " 
And the child turned away from the rings and the bracelets, and 
took in her hand the chaHce and the book of the Gospels. 
Then King Edward kissed his child and said, " Go whither God 
calleth thee; follow the spouse whom thou hast chosen; and 
thy mother and I will be happy if we have a child holier than 
ourselves." So Eadburh became a nun in the city of Winchester, 
and served God with fastings and prayers all the days of her life. 



HOW ENGLAND BECAME ONE KINGDOM. 147 

Besides his three sons who reigned after him, King Edward 
had a son Edwin, of whom we shall hear again, and another son 
^thelweard or ^Ifweard, who is said to have been a great 
scholar and to have been in all things like his grandfather 
Alfred, but he died soon after his father. And some say that 
he had yet another son, named Gregory, who went away to 
Rome and became a monk, and thence went into the mountains 
of Swabia and became Abbot of Einsiedlen and got many gifts 
for his church from his brother-in-la.w the Emperor Otto. But 
I do not find anything like this in our English books, and I feel 
sure that no son of an English King in those days was called 
Gregory, though he may have changed his name to Gregory 
when he became a monk. 

Also I must tell you that King Edward divided the Bishop- 
rick of Sherborne into two, and gave the men of Somerset- 
shire a Bishop of their own, and placed his see in the church 
of Saint Andrew in Wells which King Ine had founded. The 
first Bishop of Wells was Ealdhelm. Thus it was in the year 
909 that Wells became a Bishop's see and Saint Andrew's 

cathedral church. 

I have now told you how the Danes came into England, and 
how England became one Kingdom. So I will end this long 
chapter here and begin another wdth the reign of the great 
^thelstan, the son of Edward. 



L 2 



CHAPTER IX. 

OF THE KINGS OF THE ENGLISH FROM THE TIME THAT 
ENGLAND BECAME ONE KINGDOM TILL THE DANES 



CAME AGAIN. 



§ I. The Reign of King JiXHELSXAN. 
925—940. 

When King Edward died, his eldest son iRthelstan was chosen 
Kincr and we find it specially said that the Mercians chose 
him, SO that the Mercians must still have had a meetmg of their 
own Wise Men separate from the meeting of the West-Saxons. 
He was then hallowed as King at Kingston i" S.urrey, as were 
several of the Kings after him. You know that Westminster 
is now the place where our Kings are crowned, but this did 
not begin mi the time of King Harold. King Athelstan 
now gave one of his sisters, as I before told yf-. ^ Sihtric 
Sie Danish King of Northumberland. But Sihtric died the 
next year, and then ^thelstan drove out his son Guthfntji 
or Godfrey, who had succeeded him, and took Northumber- 
land into his own hands. Then the other pr nces of Britain 
Howel King of the West-Welsh,^ and Owen King of Gwent, 
and Constantine King of Scots, and Ealdred the son of Ead- 
wulf of Bamborough, tried to fight against .^elstan, but he 
overcame them in battle and made them do homage, and he 

1 The West- Welsh generally means the Welsh of Cornwall and Devon- 
shire but here it seems to mean the western part of Wales as opposed to 
Gwe^t o Monmouthshire. This Howel is a very famous King among *e 
Welsh, on account of the Laws which he put together. He is called 
Howel the Good. 



. THE REIGN OF MTHELSTAN. 149 

drove out Ealdred altogether. So ^thelstan was Lord of all 
Britain, as his father Edward had been before him. 

Thus much we learn from the Chronicle with a little help 
from Florence, who explains some matters a little more at 
large ; but it is somewhat strange that, though ^thelstan was 
undoubtedly one of our greatest Kings, the account of his 
reign in the Chronicle is very short, and in some years there 
is nothing told us at all. To be sure we have the great song 
of the Battle of Brunanburh, which you may sing presently, 
but we have not much besides. On the other hand WilHam 
of Malmesbury gives a very long account of JEthelstan and 
is full of stories about him. ^thelstan was a great bene- 
factor to the Abbey of Malmesbury, and was buried there ; so 
he was no doubt much thought of by the monks of Malmes- 
bury, which is of course the reason why William writes of 
him at such length. But then we cannot trust William's 
stories as we can trust the history in the Chronicle. In one 
place indeed he professes to quote some ^vriter who is now 
lost, but most of the tales are evidently made up out of 
songs or out of traditions of the iVbbey of Malmesbury. I 
shall therefore take such parts of William's account as seem 
likely to be true histor}^, and work them in with what I find 
in the Chronicle, and I will tell as stories such stories as 
seem worth telling in that way. Altogether there are perhaps 
as many stories about ^thelstan as there are about either 
Alfred or Edgar, but they do not generally seem to have been 
so famous in later times, or to be so well known now. 

^thelstan was thirty years old w^hen he was chosen King. 
He was therefore born in 895, when his grandfather Alfred 
was still alive. He was a fair and graceful child, and his 
grandfather loved him, and is said to have made him a soldier 
while very young — for he was only six years old when Alfred 
died — and to have given him a purple cloak and a belt studded 
with gems and a sword ^ with a golden scabbard. After this, 

1 " Ensis Saxonicus." Does this mean the seax^ the old, short, crooked 
sword, from which, according to some accounts, the Saxons took their 
name? The use of the word " Saxonicus" should be noted. As William 
can hardly be copying any Welsh writer, it would seem to imply something 
distinctly Saxon as opposed to Anglian. 



150 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

he sent him to be brought up by his aunt ^thelflaed, the Lady 
of the Mercians, and by Alderman ^thehed her husband. So 
says Wilham of Malmesbury, most Hkely out of some ballad. 
According to one story, ^thelstan's mother was a shepherd's 
daughter and was not the lawful wife of Edward, and on that 
account some people objected to his election. But Florence 
calls his m.other Ecgwyn a noble lady {viulier nobilissimd). 
And it is also rather strange that we find no mention of 
any wife or children of JEthelstan himself To be sure 
^thelstan had young brothers and sisters enough, so that 
there was no fear of the royal house coming to an end. 

I just now told you that some people are said to have 
objected to ^thelstan's election. At their head was one 
Alfred, perhaps himself an ^theling^ who wished to be 
chosen King instead. Alfred was presently accused of con- 
spiring to blind the new King at Winchester. I suppose that 
the evidence was not clear, and in such cases it was not 
unusual to allow a man to clear himself by swearing that 
he was innocent, and by bringing a fixed number of people 
to swear that they believed him. The oath was to be made 
before a Bishop, and, in this case, to make it the more solemn, 
Alfred was sent to Rome to swear before the Pope, John the 
Tenth. He there swore at the altar of Saint Peter's in the 
Pope's presence, but he at once fell down and was carried 
by his servants to the English school at Rome, where he died 
on the third day. Now this is a very strange story, and it is 
so like some other stories that one is tempted to set it down 
as one of those tales which go the round of the world, and 
which turn up in all manner of times and places. Yet William 
of Malmesbury does not tell it as if it came from any ballad 
or mere tradition, but he quotes a charter of King ^thel- 
stan's own to the Abbey of Malmesbury, in which ^thelstan 
himself tells the story. For of course it was held that the 
death of Alfred was God's judgement upon him for a false 
oath, so that he was proved to be guilty of the treason with 
which he was charged. So the Wise Men gave Alfred's lands 
to King ^thelstan, and King ^thelstan gave them to the 

1 Perhaps he was a descendant of ^thelred, the elder brother of the 
great Alfred, like ^thelwald who opposed the election of Edward. 



THE REIGN OJP ^THELSTAN. 151 

Abbey of Malmesbuty. All this William of Malmesbury quotes 
from the charter, as if in ^thelstan's own words. So then, if 
the stor)^ be not true, and one can hardly think it is trae, the 
charter must have been forged at some time between the days 
of ^thelstan and those of William of AIalmesbur}\ 

I ■s\dll now go on with ^^thelstan's wars, as far as they can 
be made out. I told you how^, w^hen Sihtric of Northumberland 
died, King ^thelstan took possession of his land and drove out 
his son Guthfrith or Godfrey. WilUam of Malmesbur}' goes 
on to tell us a good deal more about this matter, which may 
very likely be true in the main, though it sounds ver}^ much as 
if it came out of a ballad. When King ^thelstan took posses- 
sion of Northumberland, the sons of Sihtric, Anlaf ^ and Guth- 
frith, fled away, Anlaf to Ireland, and Guthfrith to Constantine 
King of Scots. So King JEthelstan sent to Constantine, 
bidding him to give up Guthfrith. Constantine was afraid of 
the English King, and agreed to give Guthfrith up, but he 
escaped again with one Thurfrith and sat do^^^l before York.^ 
He there tried both ^\\h threats and prayers to make the citizens 
rebel against King ^Ethelstan, but they would not hearken. 
Soon after Guthfrith and Thurfrith were besieged in a strong 
place, and, lo, they escaped yet again. Thurfrith v^'ent out to 
sea and was shipwrecked and drowned and became food for 
the fishes.^ But Guthfrith went to King ^thelstan and craved 
peace of him ; and the King received him kindly, and feasted 
him for four days. But after the four days, Guthfrith went back 
to his ships, for he was an old sea-robber and was used to live 
in the water like a fish. jMeanwhile King ^thelstan plucked 
dow^n the strong tower which the Danes had of old built at 
York, so that it might never be held against him, and the spoil 
that w^as in the tower he divided among his army, man by m.an. 
For King ^thelstan hated greediness and was alway bountiful 
to all men. Such is William of ]\lalmesbur}^'s story, who 'says 

^ This is how our Chronicles ^^Tite the name, which is doubtless the 
same as Olaf. 

- " Obsidens." The story therefore conceives him as having something of 
an army with him. 

^ This bit and the other bit directly after, comparing Guthfrith to a fish, 
must surely com.e from a ballad. 



152 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN, 

that Constantine, when he promised to give up Guthfrith, sub- 
mitted himself and his Kingdom to -^thelstan, and that ^^Ethel- 
stan ordered Constantine's son to be baptized, and that he 
himself stood godfather to him. Now this reads as if William 
thought that the King of Scots was a heathen, whereas we 
know that the Scots had been Christians even longer than 
the English. I suppose all this is a confused account of what 
we read in the Chronicle and in Florence under the year 933 
or 934/ how the King of Scots broke the peace — whether by 
receiving Guthfrith or in any other way I do not know — and 
how King ^thelstan went against him both with a fleet and a 
land army, and harried his land, till Constantine prayed for 
peace and gave the King large gifts and his son as a hostage. 

William of Malmesbury also tells us a great deal about 
-^thelstan's wars with the Welsh in both parts of the island 
where they remained, that is to say, both in Wales and in Corn- 
wall. He made all the princes of Wales do homage to him at 
Hereford j he fixed the Wye as the boundary between England 
and Wales, and, what no English King had done before, he 
made the Welsh princes pay a tribute of gold, silver, oxen, 
hunting-dogs, and falcons. He then went against the other 
Welsh in Cornwall. Up to this time the city of Exeter, the 
greatest town in that part of Britain, had been inhabited by 
Englishmen and Welshmen, who had equal rights. But JEthel- 
stan drove out the Welshmen from Exeter and fortified the city 
with towers and a wall of squared stones. Many towns and 
strong places at this time were fortified only with wood, or at 
most with quite rough stone, but William distinctly says that the 
walls of Exeter were built of squared stones. This shows that 
our forefathers were not such bad builders as some people have 
thought that they were, ^thelstan made the Tamar the boundary 
in this direction, so that the Welsh kept only what is still called 
Cornwall. This is said to have been in 926. Thus it took 349 
years to make all Somersetshire and Devonshire English. I 
count from Ceawlin's coming in 577. And no doubt, from the 
Axe to the Tamar, and still more from the Parret to the Tamar, 
the people are still very largely of Welsh descent, though they 

1 In Simeon of Durham, who, for a northern matter, is perhaps better 
authority, it is 934. 



fe 



THE REIGN OF ^THELSTAN, 153 

have spoken English for many ages. In Cornwall itself, in 
the narrower sense in which we must now use the w^ord, the old 
Welsh tongue went on being spoken for many hundred years 
after the time of ^thelstan. 

I do not see any reason to doubt this account of William's, 
because it contradicts nothing of more authority and is quite 
credible in itself And we know that ^thelstan was at Exeter, 
as some of his laws are dated there. When he had done so 
much for the city and for that whole country, he would very 
naturally have a meeting of the Wise Men there rather than 
anywhere else. 

We now come to ^thelstan's great war and victory in the 
north in 937. He had then a great many enemies to struggle 
with at once. A Danish King Anlaf, who seems to be a dif- 
ferent person from Anlaf the son of Sihtric, came back from 
Ireland with many ships, and he was joined by Constantine of 
Scotland and Owen of Cumberland, and by all the Danes, 
Scots, and Welshmen of the north. William of Malmesbury 
tells us that just before the great battle Anlaf came into the 
English camp in the garb of a gleeman and with a harp in his 
hand. And he sang and played before King ^thelstan and 
his lords, for they knew him not. And they w^ere pleased with 
his song, and they gave him gold as men gave to a gleeman. 
And he took the gold, but he w^ould not keep it, but buried it 
in the earth, for that it was a shame for a King to keep gold 
w^hich had been given him for hire. And a soldier saw him 
hiding the gold, and knew him. AxiA the soldier went to King 
^thelstan and said, ^' My Lord O King, Anlaf thine enemy 
hath been in thy camp and hath seen thy power and where 
thou dwellest ; for it was he that came and played before thee 
and thy lords in the garb of a gleeman." And King ^thelstan 
answered and said, '' AVherefore then didst not thou give mine 
enemy into my hands when he was in thy power ? Now art 
thou no true soldier, for that thou servest not thy lord the King 
faithfully." And the soldier answ^ered and said, " My Lord O 
King, I was once a soldier of Anlaf s, and the same oath which 
I have taken to thee I then took to Anlaf Now if I had broken 
mine oath to Anlaf and had given him into thine hand, then 
couldest thou not have trusted me that I should not do the like 



154 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

unto thee. But hearken now unto the voice of thy servant, 
and move thy tent from hence, and wait till the rest of thine 
host Cometh, and then shalt thou fight against Anlaf and smite 
him." So King ^thelstan moved his tent to another place. 
And in the evening Werstan the Bishop of Sherborne came 
with his men to join the King's host. And Werstan pitched 
his tent where the King's tent had been pitched aforetime. 
And in the night came Anlaf with his host, and brake into the 
camp, and went straightway to the place where the King's tent 
had been, and slew Werstan the Bishop and all his folk. But 
when they found that the King was not there, they went on 
further, even to the place where the King's tent was now 
pitched. Now King ^thelstan slept, for he deemed not that 
Anlaf his enemy would come against him by night. But when 
he heard the noise and the tumult, he woke from his sleep, 
and bade his men arm themselves for the battle. And the 
King's sword dropped from his sheath, so that he found it not. 
Then prayed he to God and to Saint Ealdhelm, and he stretched 
forth his hand to the sheath, and found there a sword, and 
with that sword he fought against Anlaf his enemy ; and that 
sword is kept in the King's treasurehouse to this day. 

This is William's story. As usual, people are fond of telling 
so much of the tale as they think is possible, and leaving out 
all about the wonderful sword. But I do not think this is fair ; 
so I tell it you, as I do the other tales, as a tale. You will at 
once see that part of it is the same as one of the stories about 
Alfred ; no doubt it is one of those stories which, as I before 
said, get fixed sometimes to one man and sometimes to 
another. 

It was in this campaign that the great battle of Brunanburh 
was fought. Brunanburh was somewhere in Northumberland, 
but no one knows exactly where. In telling of this great fight, 
it seems as if the Chronicler could not keep himself to plain 
prose, so he gives its history in verse, which I will give you with 
as little change as I can. 



THE REIGN OF MTHELSTA^. 



155 



\t S0jtg 0f i\t d^igljt of grmtHnbitrlj. 



Now -^thelstan King, 

Of Earls 1 the Lord, 

To warriors 2 the ring-giver, 

And his brother eke, 

Eadmimd ^thehng, 5 

Eld-long 3 gloiy 

Won in the fight 

With the sword's edge 

By Brunanburh. 

The boardwain they clave, 10 

And hewed the war-linden,^ 

With hammer's leavings,^ 

Offspring of Eadward, 

As to them kindly was 

From their forefathers, 15 

That they in fight oft 

With every foeman 

Their land should guard. 

Their hoard and homes. 

The foemen cringed,'' 20 

The Scottish people. 



And the ship-floaters 
Death-doomed 8 fell. 
The field streamed 
With warriors' sweat, ^ 
Since the Sun up 
At morning- tide. 
The glorious star, 
Glode over grounds, 
God's candle ^^ bright, 
The everlasting Lord's, 
Till the noble shape ^^ 
Sank to her settle. ^^ 
Here lay warriors many 
By javelins pierced, 
Northern men 
Over shield shot. 
So Scottish eke, 
.Weary war-sated. 
And West- Saxons forth. 
The life-long day, 
Li warlike bands. 



35 



40 



1 That is of 7tobles^ or perhaps warriors in general. Earl did not, except 
among the Danes, become a special title answering to Alde^^man till Cnut's 
time. 

2 I hardly know hov/ to translate the word Beorn. I am not clear that 
Be7', Baron^ and the like, are not corruptions of it, but it would hardly do 
to talk of Barons so soon. 

^ Glory to last all his life, till his eld or old age. 

* The wall of shields made of wood. 

^ Shields made of linden or lime w^ood. 

^ That is with the szuord^ what the hammer leaves after beating out the iron. 

' In the literal sense, fell or died ; now we only use the vv ord figuratively. 

^ Fcege ; the word y^ is still sometimes used in Scotland for a man w^hose 
death is near, which is thought to be marked by some change in him, espe- 
ciallv by his being unusually meriy. 

'^ That is blood. 

^^ It is candelm. the Old-English. This is one of the words which came into 
English very early and straight from Latin, no doubt as being an ecclesias- 
tical word. Had it come through the French, we should say chandle, as 
we do call a man who makes candles a chandler. But we say candle, 
because it comes straight from candela. 

^^ Gesceaft, the thing shaped^ the creature, that is the sun. 

^2 Seat or place — not a golden cup, as in the Greek story. 



156 



OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN, 



On the footsteps lay^ 

Of the loathed people. 

Hewed they the flyers 45 

Behind mightily 

With swords mill-sharp. ^ 

Nor did Mercians shrink from 3 

The hard handplay 

With none of heroes,^ 50 

That with Anlaf 

Over the ocean ^ 

On the ships' bosom 

The land sought. 

Doomed to the fight, 6 55 

Five there lay 

On the fightstead^ 

Kings young ; 

So seven eke 

Earls ^ of Anlaf, 60 

Countless fighting men,^ 

Fleetmen and Scots. 

There put to flight was 

The Northmen's chieftain, 

By need driven 65 

To the ship's prow 

With a httle band. 



Crowded ^^ he his bark afloat, 

The King out got him 

On the fallow flood, 70 

His life delivered. 

So there eke the old one 

In flight came 

To his kith^^ northward, 

Constantinus, 75 

Hoary war- man. 

Boast he might not 

Of the swords' meeting ; 

He was of kinsmen shorn, 

Of friends bereaved, 80 

On the folksteadi2 

Slain in the battle. 

And his son left he, 

On the slaughter- place, ^2 

With wounds ground down, 85 

Young in warfare. ^^ 

Vaunt him might not 

The warrior with greyi^ 

hair, 
Of the bills clashing. 
That old deceiver. 90 

Nor Anlaf the mo. 



Sharp from the grindstone. 



^ That is followed. 

•^ Literally, warned. 

^ Hcele^^ the same word as the High-Dutch {or German) held, 

^ Why the sea is called ' ' aergebland " I do not know. 

^ There are so many words in the old tongue for battle^ warriors^ &c. 
that I cannot put a different word each time without using Latin words, which 
I avoid as much as I can. Here the word is fight (gefeaht), but in 1. 57 
the word is campsted, camp being of course the same as the High-Dutch 
kampf, and in 1. 61 the word is he^dges^ cognate with the High-Dutch 
heer. 

'^ See note 6. 

^ Here Earls means Jarls^ the Danish title, like our Alderman, 

^ See note 6. 

^^ That is thrust, ptcshed, hastened. 

^^ That is land or home. 

^^ The stead or place where y2?/y^ meet, the trysting-place ; here the battle- 
field. 

^^ Wcelstow. 

1^ Gu^ (Guth), yet another word for battle. 

1^ "Beorn blanden feax:" blond ]iQrt meaning grey ; feax is the same 
word that we find in the name Fair/ajc. 



THE REIGN OF .^THELSTAN. 



iS7> 



With their hosts' remnants ; i 

Laugh they might not 

That in the war- work ^ 

Better were they 95 

On the fightstead ^ 

In the banners' joining, 

In the spears' meeting, 

In the men's gathering,^ 

In the weapons' clashing, lOO 

Where on the deathfield 

They then with Edward's 

Offspring played. 

Went forth the Northmen 

In their nailed barks, 105 

The darts', bloody leaving,^ 

On the roaring sea, 

Over deep water, 

Dublin to seek 

And once more Ireland, no 

Ashamed in mood. 

So too the brethren. 

Both together, 

King and ^Etheling, 

Their kith sought, 115 

The West- Saxons' land, 

In the war rejoicing. 

Left they behind them 



Corpses to feast on 

With sallow coat,^ 120 

Both the swart raven 

With horned nib. 

And him of dusky coat 

The erne ^ behind white ; 

Carcases to eat ; 125 

The greedy war-hawk. 

And that grey deer,^ 

The wolf of the weald. 

Never was slaughter more 

In this island 130 

Afore yet 

Of folk o'erthrown 

Before this 

With the SY/ord's edge, 

As to us say books, 135 

Men of old wisdom, 

Sith from east hither 

Angles and Saxons 

Up became. 

Over the broad sea 140 

Britain they sought ; 

The haughty war-smiths ^ 

The Welsh overcame. 

Earls 10 for glory eager, 

A home they gat them. 145 



^ " Herelafum" — "leavings of the here''' or army. In High-Dutch heer. 

^ Another word for war, " beadzi-we.oxc2i.''^ 

^ " Campsted " as before. 

^ Gumena gejnStes — Gtcma vcLQ^iw?, mait. We have the word in an odd 
corruption in ' ^ bride^r<?^;;2, " which should be " bride^<?6';;2, " and has 
nothing to do with 2^ groom. The High-Dutch ''Brsiutigam " is nearer to 
the true form. Gemot is the word for a meeting, Witeiiagemot, Scirgemot^ 
or any other. 

•5 That is, those whom the darts left, who escaped from the darts. 

^ Seemingly the pale hue of the corpses, but the passage is very obscure. 

7 The real English name for the ea^le, which word is of course from the 
French and Latin. 

^ '' Deor,''^ like 6rip and tkiei^, means any beast ; so Shakespere talks of 
**rats and mice and such small deer." 

^ A smith is one who makes or works anything ; so a soldier is a war- 
smith (wigsmiS). 

^^ Earls: see the note at the beginning ; the whole people are here 
clearly called earls. 



158 OLD ENGLISH HISTOR V FOR CHILDREN, 

I have given you this as a specimen of the songs in which 
our forefathers set forth the great deeds of their Kings and 
chiefs, and from which no doubt a good deal of our history, 
as it is called, was afterwards made up. There are several 
other such songs in the Chronicle, but this is the first, the 
longest, and the grandest. But I want you to mark the differ- 
ence between this song and many others. There is in the song 
of Brunanburh nothing like a story or legend, nothing, if you 
strip it of its poetic language, except a few plain facts which 
the writer might have put into three or four lines of prose. 
*' King ^thelstan and his brother the ^theUng Edmund 
fought a battle at Brunanburh against the Scots under Con- 
stantine and the Danes from Ireland under Anlaf, and gained 
a great victory. Five Danish Kings, seven Earls, and the 
son of the King of Scots were killed, while Constantine and 
Anlaf escaped. Then ^thelstan and Edmund went back 
in triumph to Wessex." This is really all, and you will see 
that the song tells us less about the battle as a political and 
military matter than is usual in the Chronicle. For instance, 
Did Constantine do homage again, and did he give more 
hostages, or anything of that kind ? We are not told a word. 
Such a song is merely the history of the year in verse instead 
of in prose, and it is just as much to be believed as if it were 
in prose. But the kind of songs which William of Malmesbury 
speaks of, and which he often follows, are something quite 
different. They are stories and not histories, and we must 
judge of each as we can. We had one just before the battle, 
and I shall give you another presently. 

The fight of Brunanburh was in 937. Of the two next years 
we read nothing, and in the year 940 King ^Ethelstan died at 
Gloucester, and was buried in the Abbey of Malmesbury, to 
which he had been so great a benefactor. A tomb is shown 
there which is said to be his, and very likely it is so, but it 
must have been made again some hundred years after his time, 
as was often done. Besides his gifts to Malmesbury, he built 
a church at Middleton, now called Milton, in Dorsetshire, and 
founded a college of priests in it, which was afterwards changed 
into an abbey of monks. Besides attending to war and religion^ 
^thelstan was, like so many of our old Kings, very careful in 



THE REIGN OF yETHELSTAJST. 159^ 

putting forth laws, and in having them rightly administered. I 
have already told you how some of his laws were put forth 
at Exeter, after he had driven the Welsh out of the city. 
Altogether ^thelstan was one of our greatest and best Kings, 
and though his grandfather Alfred was the best and greatest of 
all, yet we should not forget either him or his father Edward, 
especially as it was they who really founded the Kingdom of 
England. But what chiefly distinguishes ^thelstan from nearly 
all the rest of our old Kings is the great influence which he had 
in foreign parts, through having married his sisters to all the 
greatest princes in Europe. According to some writers his court 
was a sort of school for young Kings, who were sent to him to 
learn how to govern, but I do not see any ground for thinking 
this. For instance, there was one Hakon, King of the Nor- 
wegians, who is called "^thelstan's foster," as having been 
brought up by ^thelstan'T' but it seems more likely that this 
means Guthorm in East-Anglia, who, you will remember, was 
baptized by the name of ^thelstan, and who has therefore 
got confounded with the great ^thelstan in one or two other 
stories. But one young King .^thelstan certainly did bring 
up. This was his nephew Lewis, the son of his sister Eadgifu,. 
and of Charles the Simple, King of the West-Franks. There 
was much confusion in the Western Kingdom all this time, 
and much rivalry betw^een the Kings of Laon, who were de- 
scended from Charles the Great and spoke German, and the 
Counts of Paris, who were also called Dukes of the French, 
and two of whom, Odo and Robert, were Kings. Charles was 
deposed once or twice, and was at last murdered, and Eadgifu 
and her son were driven out of the country, and took refuge in 
England. But afterwards Hugh Duke of the French (who 
married King ^thelstan's sister Eadhild and who is called 
Hugh the Great) and William Duke of the Normans, and the 
other princes of the Western Kingdom, sent for Lewis to come 
back; so he was called Ultramariiius or Lewis from-beyond- 
Sea. King ^thelstan had much to do with sending him back, 
and it is plain that England was much thought of just now in 
other lands, and that the English fleet commanded the Channel. 
I told you before that King ^thelstan had no children and, 
as far as we know, no wife, but that he had plenty of brothers 



i6o OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

and sisters. I also said that one of them was called Eadwine 
or Edwin. Now a tale is told about him, which, if it were true, 
would make ^thelstan guilty of a very great crime, but I am 
glad to say that I see no reason to believe it. 

%\t Storg of %Wm i\t %ii\tX\\^. 

You have heard how Alfred the -^theling conspired against 
King ^'Ethelstan and sought to blind him in the city of Win- 
chester, and how Alfred went to the great city of Rome and 
made oath before the Pope that he was innocent, and how the 
judgement of God showed that he was guilty. Then came evil 
men to King ^thelstan and spake falsely to him, saying, " Lo 
thy brother Edwin the .^theling is one of them who had part 
with Alfred, and he also seeketh to take away thy life." And 
he who was the chief of them who told this false tale was the 
King's cup-bearer. Now when Edwin the ^theling heard this, 
he sent messengers to his brother the King, saying, " Believe 
not these men, for I am guiltless of this thing." But the King 
hearkened not. So Edwin the ^theling came himself to his 
brother the King, and he made oath before the King, as men 
make oath when they are charged with any grievous crime, and 
he sware that he had not done this thing, and that he had 
never sought to slay or to blind ^thelstan his brother. How- 
beit King ^thelstan believed not Edwin his brother, but 
hearkened to the voice of his cup-bearer and of the other men 
who spake against him. And the King said, '^ I will not slay 
Edwin, for that he is my brother, and I fear to have my 
brother's blood on my head ; yet will I send him out of the 
land, and I will so send him out of the land that haply 
he may die as he goeth." So the King commanded, and 
they put Edwin the JEtheling, and one that was his armour- 
bearer, into a boat, and bade them sail away where they 
would. But the boat was old and leaky, and they had 
neither oars nor rudder to guide it. So the winds drave them 
into the midst of the sea, and no small tempest lay on them, 
and the heart of Edwin the ^theling failed him. And he said, 
^' It is better for me to die once than to live thus in fear of | 
death." So he leaped into the sea and was drowned. But his 



THE REIGN OF ^THELSTAN. i6i 

armour-bearer took up his body, and he let the boat drift when 
the wind was for him, and he rowed as he might with his feet 
when the wind was against him, till he came to the haven of 
Witsand in Gaul which is over against Dover. And when King 
yEthelstan heard this, he was grieved, and his heart smote him, 
saying, " I have slain my brother." And he did penance in 
the church for seven years, as one that had slain his brother. 
And when the seven years were accomplished, he held a royal 
feast on a solemn day, and his cup-bearer served him as of 
old. And as the cup-bearer gave the King wine to drink, his 
foot slipped, and he bore himself up with the other foot, so 
that he fell not. And he said, " So brother helpeth brother." 
And King ^thelstan said, ^^ Yea, brother helpeth brother, and 
I once had a brother who might have helped me, but thou didst 
beguile me that I slew him." And King ^thelstan wept and 
groaned for the death of Edwin his brother, and he bade the 
men that were with him seize the cup-bearer and smite off his 
head, for that he was the murderer of Edwin. 



Such is the story in William of Malmesbury ; now let us see 
how much truth there is likely to be in it. The Chronicle only 
tells us, in one copy, that in 933 Edwin the ^theling was 
drowned in the sea ; Florence says nothing about it ; Henry of 
Huntingdon, who, I told you, lived long after, but who seems 
to have had writings before him which are now lost, speaks 
of Edwin's being drowned as a great misfortune and grief to 
^F^thelstan, but does not in the least imply that he had any 
hand in his death. Simeon of Durham, on the other hand, 
says that Edwin was drowned by order of ^Ethelstan. Simeon, 
as I have told you, wrote long after, and he is not so good an 
authority for AVest-Saxon matters as he is for things in his own 
part of England. So I think you will see that the story rests 
on very slight grounds indeed. And the tale, as it stands in 
William of Malmesbury, is clearly made up of two or three 
of those stories which, as I say, go about the world. There 
are a great many stories about people being exposed in boats ; 
you have already heard some of them in the history of Ragnar 

M 



i62 OLD ENGLISH HIS TOR V FOR CHILDREN. 

Lodbrog and ^lla of Northumberland. Th e story about brother 
helping "brother comes over again in the history of Earl God- 
wine, just as the story of the King going into the enemy's camp 
as a minstrel is told both of Alfred and of Anlaf Then again 
the story seems clearly to be placed at the beginning of JEthel- 
stan's reign, whereas JEthelstan had reigned eight years when 
Edwin was drowned in 933. And if ^thelstan did penance 
for seven years after 933, the story about the cup-bearer must 
have happened in the very last year of his reign, and his greatest 
victories must have been won while he was doing penance. 
Altogether the tale seems to me to be a mere legend, and I do 
not see how we can say anything more than that Edwin was 
drowned, but that we do not know how. I see no reason to 
charge any one with any blame because of it, any more than 
when another ^theling, William, the son of Henry the First, 
was drowned at sea two hundred years after. 

I have spoken of this at some length, because I think you 
should from the very beginning learn to distinguish between 
truth and falsehood, and to know how much more trustworthy 
one writer is than another. 



§ 2, The Reign of King Edmund. 
940—946. 

, There could not be much doubt who should be chosen King 
on the death of ^thelstan. As he had left no children, no 
one was likely to contend with Edmund his next brother, who 
had already won so much glory at Brunanburh. He was now 
eighteen, so that at the time of the battle he must have been 
only fifteen. So Edmund was chosen King by the Wise Men 
of Wessex and no doubt by the English of Mercia also. But 
the Danes both in Northumberland and in Mercia rebelled and 
broke their oaths, and sent for Anlaf from Ireland to be their 
King. So Edmund had just as much fighting to go through 
as his brother or his father. The next year he won back the 
Five Boroughs of Mercia, which the Danes held, and which 
seem to have formed a sort of Confederacy. These were 



THE REIGN OF EDMUND. 163 

Leicester, Lincoln, Nottingham, Stamford, and Derby. This 
was thought so great a success that the Chronicle again throws 
it into the form of a song. But the next year Anlaf took 
Tamworth, and defeated the English, and took much spoil. 
And, according to other accounts,^ the two Archbishops, Oda 
of Canterbury and Wulfstan of York, brought the two Kings 
to an agreement, something like that between Alfred and 
Guthorm, that Anlaf should reign on one side of Watling Street 
and Edmund on the other. Archbishop AVulfstan, strange to 
say, was on Anlaf's side, and was besieged with him in Lei- 
cester by Edmund. Anlaf died soon after,^and was succeeded 
in Northumberland by another Anlaf (namely the son of Sihtric, 
of whom we heard in the time of ^thelstan) and by Regnald 
the son of Guthfrith. They divided the land between them, 
and made friendship with Edmund and received baptism. But 
in 944 Edmund drove them out and gained possession of 
Northumberland. The Scots either kept quiet during these 
wars, or perhaps helped Edmund, for when in 945 Edmund 
conquered Cumberland, he gave it to Malcolm King of Scots, 
on condition of helping him by land and sea, and we hear 
of no more trouble with the Scots for some years. 

Thus was Edmund, like his father and brother. Lord of all 
Britain. But he did not long enjoy his greatness. The next 
year, 946, he was keeping the feast of Saint Augustine of Canter- 
bury at Pucklechurch in Gloucestershire, and there came into 
the hall one Liofa a robber, whom he had banished six years 
before. This man went and sat down by one of the chief 
Aldermen, near the King himself. The King bade his cup- 
bearer to take him away ; but instead of going he tried to kill 
the cup-bearer. Then the King got up and went to help his 
cup-bearer, and seized Liofa by the hair and threw him on the 
ground, but Liofa had a dagger, and so he stabbed the King 
from below. Liofa was cut to pieces at once by the King's 

1 Simeon. 

^ It is very hard to get these events into their right order, because the 
Chronicle and Simeon give the dates quite differently, and because the two 
Anlafs get constantly confounded. In Northern affairs Simeon is perhaps 
the better authority. 

M 2 



i64 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

men, but Edmund — Edmund the Magnificent ^ as he is called 
— was killed. 2 

It was during the reign of King Edmund that a very 
memorable man first comes into notice. I mean Dunstan, 
Abbot of Glastonbury and afterwards x\rchbishop of Canter- 
bury. It is a great pity that so many strange stories are 
told of him, especially one very silly one indeed, because, 
when his name is mentioned, people are apt to think of 
those stories and not of his real actions. We shall soon hear 
of him as the chief man of all England, but he was not so as 
yet. He was born in the first year of ^thelstan, 925,^ near 
Glastonbury, where his father Heorstan was a great Thane. 
His mother's name was Cynethrith. I do not think that I need 
tell you ail that is said about him, but I will give a little sketch 
of his life up to this time. As a boy he was taught in the 
school which belonged to the Abbey at Glastonbury. Afterwards 
he was introduced to the court of King ^thelstan, where he did 
not stay long, as it seems he found enemies there. As he grew 
up, he greatly wished to marry a lady about the court, whose 
name is not mentioned, but his kinsman ^Ifheah, Bishop of 
Winchester, with a good deal of difficulty persuaded him to 
become a monk. He now gave himself up to the learning of 
the time, and to various arts which were useful for the service 
of the church, as music, painting, and metal-work. Both ^Ethel- 
stan and Edmund seem to have taken a good deal of notice of 
him from time to time, and at last in 943 King Edmund made 
him Abbot of Glastonbury. As Abbot he did a great deal for 
the monastery, rebuilding the great church and reforming the 
discipline of the monks, according to the stricter rule of the 
monasteries of Gaul. When King Edmund was murdered at 
Pucklechurch, his body was brought to Glastonbury, and was 
there buried by Abbot Dunstan. 

1 Magnificus : that is the doer of great deeds, in Greek /leyaXoirpdyixcoi/, 
not magnificent in the way of mere pomp and show. 

2 I have tried, after Dr. Lappenberg's example, to put the story together 
rom the accomits of the Chronicle, Florence, and William of Malmesbury. 

They do not contradict one another, but each gives some further details. 

3 The date is given in the Chronicle, yet it can hardly be right ; as, if so, 
Dunstan must have become Abbot of Glastonbury when he was only 
eighteen. 



THE REIGN OF EADRED, 165 

§ 3. The Reign of King Eadred. 
946—955- 

King Edmund left two sons, Eadwig (whose name is often 
written Edwy^) and Edgar, but they were quite young children, 
so the Wise Men chose Eadred, brother of Edmund, to be 
King. He must have been a young man himself, as his elder 
brother Edmund was only tw^enty-four when he was killed. He 
is said to have been weak and sickly in health, but his reign 
was an active one, and things were wisely managed, for Abbot 
Dunstan was his chief minister. 

King Eadred was hallowed at Kingston by Archbishop Oda, 
and at first the Northumbrians acknowledged him, as well as 
the Scots. The next year he w^ent into Northumberland, and 
all the Wise Men of Northumberland, with Archbishop Wulf- 
stan at their head, swore oaths to him. But in 948^ they re- 
belled and chose for their King Eric the son of Harold Blaa- 
tand (Blue-tooth) King of Denmark. So King Eadred went 
and ravaged their whole country ; on which they submitted 
and drove out Eric. King Eadred made one Oswulf EarP 
of the Northumbrians ; he seems to have been of the house of 
the old lords of Bamborough,^ and the Earldom of at least part 
of the country remained in his family for more than a hundred 
years. Archbishop Wulfstan was deposed from his Bishoprick 
and put in prison at Jedburgh in Bernicia. This is worth 
noticing, because it shows that, even with Abbot Dunstan at 
the head of affairs, a churchman was as much subject to 
the law as anybody else. But after a little while Wulfstan 
was allowed to come out of prison, and though he was not 

1 I have seen it written Edwin, but this is quite wrong, as 'E.^idwine and 
Y^diQwig are quite different names. See what I say about the meaning of 
names at the beginning of the book. 

^ Here again it is very difficult to get the dates into harmony. The 
Clironicle is nearer the time, but Simeon knew more about his own 
country. 

2 See pp. 144, 148. 

* You see that in the Danish part of England the Danish title Earl was 
used, whilst in Wessex and the rest of the south, they still had Aldermen. 



i66 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN, 

allowed to go back to York, where he had been so trouble- 
some, he was given the Bishoprick of Dorchester. Dunstan 
however caused the King to give largely to churches and 
monsteries, and he is said to have had the royal treasure kept 
at Glastonbury. 

King Eadred died at Frome in 955, and was buried in the 
Old Minster at Winchester. We do not read of any wife or 
children of his. 



§ 4. The Reign of King Eadwig. 
955—959- 

The Wise Men now chose Eadwig or Edwy, the eldest son of 
King Edmund. He was still very young, but there was no one 
else left in the royal family, and he seem^s to have been chosen 
without difficulty and to have been acknowledged by the whole 
country. It seems most likely that his younger brother Edgar 
was made Under-king in Mercia from the beginning of Eadwig's 
reign, but this is not quite certain, and at any rate he was only 
Under-king with his brother as his superior lord. Ead wig's reign, 
like those of his father and uncle, was very short, and, unlike 
theirs, it was also very unlucky. 

It is very hard to tell you about the reign of King Eadwig, 
because the account in the Chronicle is very short, and because 
all other accounts contradict one another so that one hardly 
knows what to believe. The truth is that the history of this time 
is greatly affected by what is called party spirit. That is to say, 
people who are of any particular way of thinking in religion or 
politics or anything else are too apt to tell everything so as to 
make out their own side as good as possible and the other side 
as bad as possible, whether it really was so or not. Now no party 
ever was either all good or all bad ; in all such disputes there 
are sure to be good and bad men on both sides, and moreover 
nobody is so good as never to do wrong and nobody is so bad 
as never to do right. So if any account makes out everything 
done on one side to be all good, and everything done on the 
other side to be all evil, you may be quite sure that that is not 
a true account. Sometimes, in such cases, we have accounts 



THE REIGN OF E AD WIG, 167 

given by both sides, and then we must act as judges, and try 
and get at the truth by comparing and weighing one side against 
another. But this is often very hard to do. Now we have had 
nothing Hke this in our history as far as we have yet gone. Our 
accounts may have been influenced by national feehngs — I 
mean that an Englishman and a Welshman would not always 
talk in the same way about a war between the Welsh and the 
English — but we have heard very little about party feelings, 
about religious or political differences between men of the same 
nation. We have had something like it when Augustine and 
the Welsh Bishops could not agree about the time of keeping 
Easter, and when there were disputes in Northumberland about 
the same matter some time after. And of course there is also 
something like it in the very change from heathenism to 
Christianity. Perhaps if we had a history of those times 
written by a heathen, Edwin might not seem so good nor 
Penda so bad as they do in our Christian accounts ; but at this 
we can only guess. But in this case of Eadwig we see that the 
story is distinctly coloured by party spirit. Eadwig was the 
enemy of Dunstan ; therefore the admirers of Dunstan have 
tried to make out Eadwig as bad as possible. On the other 
hand most modern writers have a prejudice against Dunstan, 
and try to make the best of Eadwig and the worst of DunstaiL 
If the Chronicle gave us a full account, we should know better 
what to believe. As it is, I will put the story together as well 
as I can by comparing different accounts. 

The Chronicle does not tell us any harm of Eadwig, and 
yEthelweard^ and Henry of Huntingdon give him a good 
character and lament his early death. On the other hand it is 
certain that he drove Dunstan out of the Kingdom. Now 
when we see how well things went on both under Eadred and 
afterwards under Edgar, when Dunstan was again in power, 
and how badly they went on under Eadwig, we shall think that 
to drive out Dunstan was a very foolish thing to do. Dunstan 
was a great and wise minister, but it was very natural for several 

1 .^thelweard was a man of the royal house who was an Alderman under 
King ^thelred. His history is but a poor one, but it is remarkable, 
because he is the only English historian of those times who was not a 
priest or a monk. 



i68 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN, 

reasons that Eadwig should dislike him. Dunstan's great 
object was the reformation of the Church, according to his 
own notion of reformation. And there can be no doubt that 
he both aimed at and did a great deal of good, though his zeal 
in many things carried him too far. The monks at this time in 
many monasteries lived very irregular lives, not at all as monks 
should live, if there are to be monks at all. And there was 
no doubt much ignorance and vice among the secular clergy, 
that is, the clergy who were not monks, but who lived as the 
clergy do now, each man in his own house, being parsons of 
parishes and canons of cathedral and collegiate churches. 
These things Dunstan and Bishop ^thelwald of Winchester, 
and others who acted with them, set themselves heartily to reform. 
And so far as they tried to reform real ignorance or wickedness 
of any kind, so far they did right, though no doubt they would 
make themselves many enemies by so doing. But we cannot 
think that they were right when they went so far as to say that 
no clergyman, not even a parish priest, ought to marry, and when 
they tried to make those who were married leave their wives. 
This was not the law of the Church in the first ages, nor has it 
ever been the law of the Eastern Church, where old customs have 
always been kept up more strictly than anywhere else. But 
men in the West had long been thinking more and more that the 
clergy ought not to marry, partly because they thought that 
they would do their duties better if they had not wives and 
children to think about. And no doubt this is to some extent 
true, but on the whole experience shows that the law of the 
Eastern Church, which allowed the clergy to marry, was better 
than that of the West, which gradually came to forbid them. 
And when our own Church, and the Churches of Northern 
Europe generally, found it necessary to throw off all obedience 
to the Bishop of Rome, one of the chief points that was 
insisted on was that the clergy should be allowed to marry. 
And besides this, Dunstan and those who acted with him were 
very anxious to get all the cathedral and other great churches 
into the hands of monks instead of secular priests of any kind, 
whether married or not. This they did to a great extent in 
the days of Edgar, and other Kings and Bishops often did 
the same afterwards, so that several cathedral churches were 



THE REIGN OF EADRED. 169 

served by monks instead of secular canons down to the time 
of Henry the Eighth. But in other churches the canons ahvays 
remained ; for instance, in our own church of Wells there never 
were any monks at any time, but it has ahvays been a church 
of secular priests, as King Ine made it at first. At Glastonbury 
there always had been monks, and of course Dunstan did right 
to make them live according to their oami profession. Alto- 
gether Dunstan was a great and good man, a zealous reformer 
of the Church and a wise governor of the Kingdom. But it is 
clear that his zeal in these two points carried him too far. 

Now it could not but happen that different men should 
think very differently about changes like these, w^hich, whether 
good or bad in themselves, must have caused much hardship 
to a great many people. There w^ould naturally be two parties 
in the land, one for Dunstan and one against him. Now King 
Eadred had been Dunstan's friend throughout, and so w^as 
King Edgar afterwards. But King Eadwdg took the other 
side. He does not appear to have been at all an enemy of 
the Church or a robber of monasteries, as some have made 
him out, for he was a benefactor to the churches both of 
Glastonbury and of Abingdon. But he did not like Dunstan 
and he did not approve of his schemes. So far from turning 
out secular priests to put in monks, he seems to have some- 
times put secular priests into churches where there had always 
been monks. William of Malmesbury bitterly complains that 
secular priests were put into his owm church a.t Malmesbury, 
making it w^hat he calls ''a stable of clerks," as if secular 
priests were no better than beasts. It is no Avonder then that we 
find the w^hole history both of Eadw^g and of Edgar perverted 
by pa7'ty spirit. Dunstan's friends make out all the ill they 
can against Eadwig, and Dunstan's enemies make out all the 
ill they can against Edgar. Hence both Eadwdg and Edgar 
are charged wdth crimes which most likely neither of them 
ever committed. 

As far as I can make out, it is most likely that Eadwig, 
before he was chosen King or directly after, married a lady 
called yElfgifu, whose name in Latin is written Elgiva. She 
was so near of kin to him that, according to the laws of the 
Church at that time, he could not lawfully marry her. The 



1 70 OLD ENGLISH HIS TOR Y FOR CHILDREN. 

law then was much stricter on such matters than it is now, 
but whether the law was good or bad, we cannot blame 
Duns tan or anybody else for trying to put in force the law 
as he finds it. But some of Dunstan's party seem to have 
been needlessly violent about it, and as they did not hold 
the marriage to be a lawful one, they took a pleasure in 
speaking as if ^Ifgifu had not been Eadwig's wife at all, a way 
of speaking which has led to great confusion in the history. 
It is said that, on the day of Eadwig's hallowing as King, 
when, as usual, there was a great feast made to his Aldermen 
and his Bishops and all his Wise Men, Eadwig left the hall 
where they all were, and went away to another room to visit his 
wife and her mother. If we look at this impartially, we shall 
see that this was anyhow a great insult to the great men of the 
Kingdom, and that it would especially offend those who held 
that ^Ifgifu was not the King's lawful wife. So Abbot Dun- 
stan and Cynesige Bishop of Lichfield went to try to bring 
him back, which with some difficulty they did. We may well 
believe that there was a good deal of strong language on both 
sides, and that neither Eadwig nor ^Ifgifu ever forgave Dunstan. 
It so happened that a party among the monks of Glastonbury 
were displeased at Dunstan's changes. This is no more than 
was sure to happen, whether his changes were good or bad. 
But of course the King and ^Ifgifu would be glad of such 
an opportunity; so in one of the next two years, either in 956 
or 957, Dunstan was driven out of the Kingdom and took 
refuge in Flanders. 

Now, either by his banishment of Dunstan or by his way of 
governing in general, Eadwig gave great offence to his subjects. 
In 957 Mercia and all England north of the Thames revolted ; 
and they chose the ^theling Edgar, who was already most 
likely their Under-king, to be King in his own right. Edgar 
King of the Mercians, as he is now called, at once sent for 
Dunstan to come to him, and he presently gave him the 
Bishoprick of Worcester, and afterwards that of London. 
Dunstan held both these Bishoprick s at once, a thing as clearly 
against the laws of the Church as any of the evils which he 
was trying to reform. The next year, 958, Archbishop Oda 
at last made Eadwig separate from ^Elfgifu. This we know 



THE REIGN OF EDGAR, 171 

from the Chronicle, and it looks very much as if people in 
Wessex were getting discontented as well as in Mercia, and as 
if Eadwig made this sacrifice to win them back. I can hardly 
tell what happened next. I only know for certain that Arch- 
bishop Oda died the same year that he divorced ^Ifgifu, and 
that Eadwig himself died the year after, 959. But there are 
all sorts of stories told by later writers, of which I can make 
out nothing, because they are so utterly contradictory and so 
confused as to their dates. Some woman or other, by whom 
they seem to mean ^Ifgifu, w^as, according to one account, 
killed by the Mercians in their revolt ; according to another. 
Archbishop Oda had her branded in the face with a hot iron and 
then banished to Ireland, and when she ventured to come back, 
Oda's men caught her at Gloucester, and cut the sinews of her 
legs, so that she died in this honible way. Now it is clear 
that ^Ifgifu could not be killed in the revolt of JVIercia, 
because she w^as divorced aftenvards, and the other dreadful 
tale rests on no good authority. Some say that Eadwig himself 
was killed, but I find nothing about that either in any early 
writer. I can only say that Eadwig, King of the West-Saxons, 
as he is now called, died in 959 and w^as buried in the New 
Minster at Winchester. 



§ 5. The Reign of King Edgar. 
959—975- 

On the death of Eadwig, his brother Edgar, King of the 
Mercians, was chosen King by the whole people of the English,^ 
and he reigned over West-Saxons, Mercians, and Northumbrians. 
But he was not hallowed as King for many years after ; perhaps 
he had been hallowed already as King of the Mercians, and 
it was not thought needful to have it done over again. Edgar 
was only sixteen years old when he was chosen King. 

^ "Ab omni Anglorum populo electus," says Florence of Worcester. 
"/EgSer ge on West-seaxum, ge on Myrcum, ge on NorShymbrum," says 
the Old-English of the Chronicles. You should know the letter > or 0, 
the letter Thorn, like the Greek Theta. I wish we had it still. 



172 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN, 

It is almost as hard to write about Edgar as about his 
brother, because the accounts which we have of him are very 
contradictory. The earhest and best writers glorify him as the 
best and greatest of Kings j the Chronicler can hardly speak of 
him without bursting forth into poetry ; Florence says he was 
as famous among the English as Alexander among the Mace- 
donians or Charles among the Franks. On the other hand 
there is no King about whom there are more stories to his 
discredit. Here again we can see party spirit. There is no 
doubt that under Edgar England was wonderfully prosperous 
and wonderfully peaceful. He was also the great friend of the 
monks. This last was enough to make one side call him 
everything that was good and the other side call him everything 
that was bad. Most likely he was neither so good as the one 
picture nor so bad as the other. But I may say this much. 
The prosperity of his reign is certain, while the crimes at- 
tributed to him are very doubtful. They come from stories 
in William of Malmesbury, who allows that he got them out of 
ballads. Some of them are evidently just the same sort of 
stories as those of which we have had so many. 

One thing at any rate is very plain, namely that there was no 
time in the tenth century, or for a long time after the tenth 
century, when there was so little fighting in the land as in the 
reign of Edgar. Never was there so much peace abroad or so 
much quiet at home. We hear of no invasions of Danes or 
of anybody else, and of very little disturbance in Britain itself 
There was a little fighting with the Welsh, and a little with the 
Scots just at the beginning of Edgar's reign. But on the whole 
the King's power never was so fully established within his own 
Kingdom nor so completely acknowledged by the Kings and 
Princes who were his vassals. To preserve his Kingdom from 
foreign invaders, Edgar, like Alfred, kept up a great fleet, 
which was always sailing about the coasts, so that the Danes 
could never land. But there may very likely have now and 
then been some fighting by sea ; for instance in 962 we read 
how a certain King Sigeferth killed himself and was buried at 
Wimborne. Now it is hard to see what any King Sigeferth 
could have been doing anywhere near Wimborne, unless he 
was a Danish prisoner. King Edgar often went about with 



THE REIGN OF EDGAR. 173 

his fleet himself, and he also went through the different parts 
of the Kingdom to see that justice was done everywhere, and 
he was very severe to all wrongdoers. Very severe indeed he 
was, for we find that in 969 he caused the Isle of Thanet to be 
harried or ravaged, because of some disobedience, of what kind 
we are not told/ Of the general goodness of his government 
there seems no doubt, only some accuse him of being too fond 
of encouraging foreigners in the country, Saxons — that is, of 
course, Old-Saxons from Germany — Flemings, and even heathen 
Danes, and they say that the people learned from them different 
vices to which they were not used before. But this is only the 
sort of way in which old-fashioned and prejudiced people always 
talk of any intercourse with strangers. No doubt Edgar tried, 
as a wise King would, to bring his people into greater inter- 
course with the rest of the world by commerce and otherwise. 
He was on good terms with foreign Princes, and his friendship 
with the great Emperor Otto is specially spoken of. You will 
remember that Otto was a sort' of uncle of Edgar's, having 
married his aunt Eadgyth or Edith, the daughter of King 
Edward. But she was now dead. 

The civil and military events of Edgar's reign are not very 
many. Edgar the Peaceful had very little to do mth fighting. 
His chief war was with the Welsh, because Idwal the son of 
Roderick the Great, a Prince in North Wales, refused to pay 
the tribute which had always been paid since the time of 
^thelstan. So in 963 King Edgar went against him and 
harried his land. William of Malmesbury tells a strange story 
that Edgar ordered Idwal to pay a tribute of 300 wolves' heads 
yearly, but that it w^as paid only for three years, because in the 
fourth year there were no more wolves to be found. I do not 
know how this may be, but I know that there were wolves in 
Britain long after, and surely North Wales is one of the parts of 
Britain where they were likely to linger longest. 

Edgar's doings in the North of England were more import- 
ant. You will remember how much trouble Northumberland 
had given to all the Kings before him since Alfred ; how for a 

1 The fact comes from the Chronicle, the reason from Henry of Hunt- 
ingdon. Roger of Wendover, who wrote much later, says that the men of 
the isle had ill-treated some merchants of York. 



1 74 OLD ENGLISH HI ST OR V FOR CHILDREN. 

long time the Northumbrians had Kings of their own, and 
how at last King Eadred had put down the separate Kings and 
had made Oswulf Earl of the Northumbrians. King Edgar 
seems to have thought that Northumberland was a country too 
great and too distant for any one man to govern. I suppose 
there must have been some sort of disturbances in the country. 
In 961 King Edgar kept his Christmas at York, and in 966 we 
read that Westmoreland w^as harried, which seems to imply 
some revolt. And the same year he divided Northumber- 
land between two Earls ; that is to say, he restored the old 
division between Beornarice ( Beniicia) and Dco7marice (Deira). 
He made one Oslac Earl of Deira or the southern part, with 
York for his capital. To Oswulf the old Earl was left the country 
beyond the Tees, that is the present county of Northumberland 
and what was afterwards the Bishoprick^ of Durham. This was 
no doubt the beginning of the division of Northumberland into 
several shires, and the reason why the name of Northumberland 
has stuck to a part of the old Kingdom quite away from the 
Humber. Besides this it is also said that King Edgar granted 
Lothian to Kenneth, King of Scots, to be held as his vassal. 
You will remember that Northumberland reached as far as the 
Forth, and that Edwin esburh, which we call Edinburgh, was 
King Edwin's border castle. You know also that this part of 
Northumberland called Lothian has long been part of the 
Kingdom of Scotland. It certainly was held by the Scots before 
the Norman Conquest, and this seems as likely a time as any 
for it to have been granted out. As King Edgar wished to 
divide Northumberland, and as Kenneth was already his vassal 
as King of Scots, there was really nothing wonderful in his 
granting him further territory on the same terms. Of this it 

1 The Bishoprick or County Palatine is the county of which the Bishop of 
Durham was formerly a temporal Prince, a rank which he kept down to 
the reign of William the Fourth. But before that time his power had been 
greatly lessened. You must not confound the BishopTick with the Diocese 
of Durham, which takes in also the county of Northumberland. Thus 
in the county of Northumberland the Bishop was simply Bishop, in 
the Bishoprick of Durham he was a temporal Prince as well. But there 
was no Bishop of Durham yet ; the church and city of Durham had not 
yet been founded, and the Bishop's see was at Cunegaceaster or Chester-le- 
Street. 



THE REIGN OF EDGAR. 175 

came that Lothian was ever after held by the Scottish Kings. 
But the people of Lothian were English or Danish, and retained 
their language, and were much more civilized than the natural 
Scots. So the Kings of Scots gradually came to think more of 
their English territories, and learned to speak English, and at 
last to live mainly in Lothian, so that the Kingdom of Scotland 
was leavened, so to speak, by this English part of it. Of the 
three places most famous in Scottish history, Edinburgh is, as 
you know, in Lothian, Stirling is just on the border, and Dum- 
fermline just on the other side of the Firth of Forth. 

It is hard to say why it was that Edgar was not crowned till 
he had reigned thirteen years. In 973 he was at last hallowed 
as King '^in the old borough Acemannesceaster,i which by 
another name men Bath call," or, as another copy of the 
Chronicle says, '^at the Hot Baths." After his hallowing he 
sailed with his fleet all round Wales to Chester,^ and there 
six, or as some say eight, of his vassal Kings came with 
their fleets and did homage to him, and swore to be faith- 
ful to him by land and by sea These eight are said to have 
been Kenneth King of Scots, Malcolm of Cumberland, Maccus 
of the Isles, and five Welsh princes, whose names are given as 
Dufnal, Siferth, Huwal (Howel), Jacob, and Juchil. These 
eight Kings rowed the Lord of all Britain in a boat, while 
Edgar himself steered, from the royal palace at Chester to the 
minster of Saint John, where they prayed, and went back in 
the same way. This was thought to be the proudest day that 
any King of the English had ever seen. 

As King Edgar had so much more power than any of the 
Kings before him, it is not wonderful that we find in his 
charters that he is not called merely King of the English or 
King of the Anglo-Saxons, but " King of the English and all 
the nations round about," " Ruler and Lord of the whole isle 
of Albion," '' Basileiis of all Britain," and so forth. There is 
a story told by William of Malmesbury, which may perhaps 

1 The first syllable of this word is the Latin Aqiics, from the old name 
AqucB So lis. See p. 36. 

*^ In the Chronicle Leicester (Legerceaster, L^gecaster, Leicastre). Yon 
will remember that Leicester, Chester, and Caerleon all have the same name, 
which sometimes leads to confusion. Here of course Chester is meant 



176 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

have happened after the great gathering of Kings at Chester. 
Edgar was, so it is said, but a small man in stature, yet he 
was strong and skilful in arms. Now one day Kenneth of 
Scotland said at a feast, when his heart was merry with wine, 
" How strange it is that all of us, so many Kings as we are, 
should serve this one man who is smaller than any of us." 
Now this saying was told to King Edgar, and he^^bade Ken- 
neth come apart with him, for that he would confer with him 
about a certain great matter. So he took Kenneth apart into 
a certain wood, where they were all alone. Then King Edgar 
took out two swords, and gave one to Kenneth King of Scots 
and took the other himself, and said, '' Thou sayest that I am 
but a small man, and unfit to reign over thee and so many 
other Kings. Now then take this sword, and lay on manfully, 
and let us see whether of us twain is the fitter man to rule over 
the other. For it is not good that a King should be swift with 
his tongue, as thou art, unless he be also swift and strong in 
battle." But Kenneth King of Scots would not draw the sword 
against his lord the King of all Britain, but he fell at his feet, 
and craved pardon for that which he had said, for that it was 
only in jest that he had spoken. Thus were Edgar King of 
all Britain and Kenneth King of Scots made friends again as 
they were aforetime. 

In matters belonging to the Church King Edgar seems to 
have done whatever Dunstan wished. Archbishop Oda died 
a little time before King Eadwig, and in his place -^Ifsine 
Bishop of Winchester was appointed. But ^Ifsine set out to 
go to Rome to get his pallmni from the Pope, and died of the 
cold in crossing the Alps. The pallium was the special badge 
which distinguished an Archbishop from other Bishops. It was 
worn round the neck, something in the shape of the letter Y. 
It was now beginning to be the custom for every Archbishop to 
go to Rome to fetch his pallium from the Pope, and without it 
it was held that he could not exercise the power of an Arch- 
bishop. Then Brihthelm Bishop of the Sumorssetas was 
chosen, but he was not thought to be fit for the place, so 
he stayed at Wells. And I suspect that it was a great gain for 
the church of Wells that he did stay ; for I cannot help thinking 
that the real objection to him was that he was not of the party 



THE REIGN OF EDGAR. 177 

of the monks. As I told you, the monks never got into the 
church of Wells, and I suspect that it was Brihthelm that kept 
them out. When Brihthelm died, care was taken to make a 
monk named Cyneheard Bishop of the Sumorsaetas, but this 
was only a little time before Edgar died, so perhaps he had 
not time to make any change. 

As Brihthelm was not thought fit to be Archbishop, Dunstan 
was chosen in 959, the first year of King Edgar, and the next 
year he went to Rome and got his pall from Pope John. This 
Pope John to whom Dunstan went was John the Twelfth, who 
was one of the worst of all the Popes, but he is famous for 
crowning the Emperor Otto. For the time Dunstan had things 
all his own way ; and he and ^thelwald Bishop of Winchester, 
Oswald Bishop of Worcester, and others of their party, turned 
the secular priests out of many of the chief churches of 
England, and put in monks. This was done in both the 
minsters at Winchester, at Worcester, in King ^thelstan's 
minster at Middleton, and elsewhere.^ Edgar also showed 
favour to the monks everywhere; he was a great benefactor 
to Glastonbury and Malmesbury, and founded churches and 
monasteries in various places. Now as so much of our history 
was written by monks, we can well believe that much of their 
praise of Edgar is owing to the favour which he showed to 
their own order. But this cannot be all. The laws of Edgar, 
his strict government, the peace and prosperity of England 
under him, and his authority over all the other princes of 
Britain, speak for themselves, and we cannot doubt that Edgar 
was one of our greatest Kings. No doubt Dunstan helped 
him in many things besides the government of the Church ; 
but much of the glory was Edgar's own. In short, unless 
we except Eadwig — and perhaps we should not except Eadwig 
— we have a most w^onderful succession of great and wise 
Kings reaching from Alfred, or rather from ^thelred, to 

^ But it is very strange that the secular priests seem not to have been 
turned out of Dunstan's own church of Canterbury, for we find that there 
are secular priests there as late as 990, when they were driven out by Arch- 
bishop Sigeric. It is however possible, as we shall see presently, that these 
secular priests were put in at the beginning of the reign of Edward the 
Martyr. 

N 



i 78 OLD ENGLISH HIST OK Y FOR CHILDREN. 

Edgar. We shall see how sadly things changed when Edgar 
was dead. 

In the year 975 King Edgar died, and was buried at Glas- 
tonbury. He was now only thirty-two years old. It is re- 
markable how young most of the Kings during this century 
were when they died. Alfred seems to have been the oldest; 
and he was only fifty-two. 

King Edgar married twice. His first wife was ^thelflaed, 
called the White and the Duck,^ daughter of an Alderman 
named Ordmaer. By her he had a son Edward. After her death 
he married, in 964, JElfthryth, called in Latin Elfrida, the 
daughter of Ordgar, Alderman of the Defnsaetas, and, Florence 
adds, widow of ^thelwald, " the glorious Alderman of the East- 
Angles." She had two sons, Edmund, who died young in 
971, and ^thelred. King Edgar had also a daughter named 
Eadgyth or Edith, who became a nun, and was afterwards 
reckoned as a saint. Her mother's name was Wulfthryth, who, 
according to some accounts, was a nun also. 

I told you that William of Malmesbury has several stories 
about Edgar, not much to his credit, but which William allows 
are taken out of ballads. I will tell you one very famous one, 
but which I do not in the least believe. It seems to me to be 
made up out of bits of the Old Testament, Herodotus,^ and so 
forth, and it is hard to make it agree with chronology. 



In the days of King Edgar,- who was King of the English 
and Lord of all Britain, there lived a man named Ordgar, who 

1 Ened. This is the Old-EngHsh word, the same as the Greek uiJTTa, 
the Latin aiiat-is^ and the High-Dutch ente. Duck is a sort of pet name, 
from the bird's habit of ducking (High-Dutch taiichen). 

2 I do not mean that those who told the story had read Herodotus, but 
only that the same story turns up in both places. 

^ This story is found in William of Malmesbury and also in the French 
history of England by Geoffrey Gaimar, whence it is copied into the 
Chronicle called Bromton's Chronicle, which is full of strange tales. I have 
tried to put together from the two what seems to be the earliest form of 



THE REIGN OF EDGAR. 179 

was Alderman of the Defnsaetas, and he had a fair daughter 
whose name was ^Ifthryth. And men spake of the beauty of 
.^Ifthryth before the King, so that the King thought to take 
her to wife, for that ^thelflaed the Lady was dead. So the 
King spake unto ^thehvald his friend/ and said, "' Go now 
into the land of the Defnssetas, to the house of Ordgar the 
Alderman, and see ^Ifthryth his daughter, and bring me word 
whether she be as fair as men say she is or no." So ^thel- 
wald went to the house of Ordgar, and saw JElfthryth his 
daughter, and behold, she w^as the fairest of all women. And 
^'Ethelwald loved her, and he could not bear in his heart that 
she should be the King's w^ife rather than his. So he spake 
unto Ordgar her father, saying, ^' Give me thy daughter to 
wife." Now ^thelwald had not told Ordgar wherefore he had 
come to his house, and Ordgar saw JEthelwald that he was 
young and tall and brave and a friend of the King's ; so he said 
to ^thelwald, '' Yea, I will give thee my daughter." Then 
went u^thelwaid back to King Edgar, and said, " Lo, I have 
been to the house of Ordgar, and I have seen ^Ifthryth his 
daughter, and she is not so fair as men said that she was. Truly 
her face is comely, but her form is spare and deformed, and 
she is not worthy to be the wife of a King. But as for me, I 
am a poor man, and Ordgar the Alderman is rich, and he hath 
no son, and ^Ifthryth his daughter will be his heir. Let me, I 
pray thee, take her to me to wife." So the King said to ^thel- 
w^ald, ^' Let it be even as thou sayest." So ^thelwald went back 
to the house of Ordgar, and took ^Ifthryth his daughter to wife. 
But from that day ^thelwald feared the King, lest haply he 
should know how he had deceived him, and should slay him for 

the story. I suspect that Gaimar gives the earlier form, and that William 
altered some things which he saw to be clearly absurd. For instance, both 
stories speak of a son of ^thelwald, but Gaimar speaks of him as a son 
of ^Ifthryth also, while William speaks of him as a son of some other 
woman, he cannot tell whom. One may be sure that the original story 
made him yiElfthryth's son, and that William, or those whom William 
copied, changed this, because it was clearly impossible, 

^ His secretary, according to both accounts ; Bromton adds *' Alderman 
of the East- Angles." Now that zEthelwald was Alderman of the East- 
Angles we know from Florence, but I think it is clear that the ballad knew 
nothing about his having any such rank. 

N 2 



i8o OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

the sake of ^Ifthryth his wife. And after a time ^Ifthryth 
bare a son to ^thelwald, and ^thehvald prayed the King to 
hold the babe at the font, that he might be his son according to 
the laws of the Church. So King Edgar held the babe at the 
font and was his godfather, and called him after his own name 
Edgar. Then was ^thelwald glad, and said in his heart, . 
" Now is the King my brother by the law of the Church, and 
^Ifthryth my wife is the King's sister.-^ I fear not now lest 
the King should slay me that he may take her to Avife." 

But after a while men spake to the King, saying, *•' Know, O 
King, that ^thelwald thy friend hath deceived thee, and hath 
told thee lies, and hath by craft taken to himself ^lfthr}^th the 
daughter of Ordgar to be his wife. For of a truth ^Ifthryth 
is the fairest of women, and no man is worthy of her save thou 
who art the Lord of all Britain." Then the King said, " Now 
will I go even into the land of the Defnsaetas^ and see whether 
these things be so." And the King gathered him a company, 
and went into the land of the Defnsaetas as it were to hunt. 
And in his hunting he came near to the house of JEthelwald. 
And he sent to ^thelwald saying, ^' Lo, I am hunting near thy 
house j I will therefore come and tarry with thee, and see 
^Ifthryth thy fair wife, and Edgar thy son who is my godson." 
And when ^thelwald heard that saying, he was afraid, and said 
in his heart, " Now hath the King heard that which I have 
done ; and he cometh hither, and when he seeth ^Ifthryth 
and her beauty he will slay me." So ^Ethelwald went to 
^Ifthryth his wife, and said, " O my wife, thou knowest not as 
yet what I did that I might have thee to wife. When thou wast 
a maiden in the house of thy father, the King heard of thy 
beauty, and he sent me to see thee, whether thou wert as fair as 
men said that thou wast. But when I saw thee, I loved thee, 
and I could not bear that thou should est be any man's wife 
but mine own. So I spake lies to the King, and said that thou 
wast not fair enough to be the Lady of all Britain, and I spake 

1 By the old Church law no man or woman might marry the father or 
mother of a child to whom he or she had been godparent, or any one who 
had been godparent along with him. 

^ The ballad-maker clearly did not look on ^thelwald as Alderman of 
the East- Angles, as he makes him live in Devonshire. 



THE REIGN 01 EDGAR, i8i 

unto thy father, and he gave thee to me to wife. And now 
pardon me this thing that I have done for love of thee. For now 
the King hath heard of thy beauty, and he cometh to tarry in my 
house, and when he seeth thee and thy beauty, he will know all 
that I have done, and he will slay me that he may have thee 
to wife. Now therefore disguise thyself, and, if thou canst, 
hide thy beauty from him, that he may not be pleased there- 
with, nor seek to slay me for thy sake." And when ^Ifthryth 
heard that, she was wroth in her heart, and her love to her 
husband was turned to hatred, and she said, *^ Now hath 
^thelwald deceived the King, and he hath deceived me and 
my father, that I might not be Lady of the English and of all 
the Isle of Britain. Now will I this day have my revenge upon 
him who hath dealt thus with me." So ^Ifthryth arrayed herself 
in the best apparel that she had, and she put on all her jewels 
and all her bravery, and she went forth to welcome King Edgar 
to the house of her husband. And King Edgar saw her that 
she was the fairest of all women, and he knew how ^thelwald 
his friend had lied unto him. And he loved JElfthryth, and he 
sought to slay ^thelwald that he might take her to wife. And 
King Edgar sent through the land, and bade the Wise Men to 
come together to a Council in the city of Salisbury.^ And the 
Wise Men came together. And the King said, "" Lo, the 
Danes vex us in the land of Northumberland; I will there- 
fore send some brave and wise man to the city of York, 
that he may dwell there and guard the land. And who is 
braver and wiser than -^thelwald my friend? Let us there- 
fore send him to the land of Northumberland to watch over the 
city and over all the land." And the Wise Men said that it 
was well spoken. So ^thelwald rode forth to go to York to 
guard the land against the Danes. And he took with him his 
son Edgar. But on the road he tarried to hunt with the 
King in the wood of Wherwell, and when they were alone, the 
King smote ^thelwald with a javehn that he died. And when 
Edgar the son of ^thelwald came up and saw the body of 
his father lying dead, then Edgar the King said to him, " How 

1 Remember that this does not mean the city of Salisbury that now is, 
but Old Sariim, of which I shall have to speak again. 



1 82 OLD ENGLISH HI ST OR Y FOR CHILDREN, 

doth such a hunting as this please thee ?" And the lad an- 
swered, '^Whatever pleaseth thee, O King, pleaseth me also."^ 
And when Edgar the King saw that ^thelwald her husband 
was dead, he took ^Ifthryth the daughter of Ordgar to wife. 
And she bare him two sons, Edmund the ^theling, who 
died young, and ^.thelred, who was afterwards King of the 
English. And as for her other son Edgar, whom she bare 
to ^thelwald, the King loved him much and did all that he 
might to comfort him. And Edgar and ^Ifthryth, because 
of their sin that they had sinned, built a minster by the wood 
of Wherwell, and placed nuns therein, who should serve God 
with fastings and prayers night and day.^ 



1 This story is evidently the same as that of Kambyses and Prexaspes in 
Herodotus ; only in the one story the King shoots the father, and in the 
other the son. 

2 Two distinct versions may be traced in the latter part of the tale. 
According to one story, Edgar has nothing to do with the death of ^thel- 
wald, who is killed by unknown persons, robbers or the like. But after 
^thelwald's death Edgar commits the sin of marrying his widow contrary 
to the law of the Church, for which he is reproved by Dunstan. According 
to the other account, Edgar kills ^"^thelwald with his own hand, and speaks 
to his son as I have said in the text. These both seem original stories, 
and there is no reason why the former may not be true. But a third ver- 
sion, namely that iEthelwald was killed by people sent by Edgar, seems 
a mixture of the two stories, and the author of it probably had the stor)^ 
of David and Uriah in his head. William of Malmesbury knows nothing 
about the meeting of the Wise Men at Salisbury, but it seems to fit in very 
well wdth the state of things at the time. He makes Edgar kill ^thelwald 
himself, and he tells the story of the boy, whom he makes to be ^thelwald's 
son by another woman. This last is not in Gaimar and Bromton. Most 
likely William and Gaimar both saw the absurdity of making a son of 
^Elfthryth's already able to talk and act, and each altered the tale in his 
own way. William gave him another mother ; Gaimar left out the latter 
part of the story altogether. But the King's great affection for the boy, of 
which no one speaks but William, exactly fits in with his being his stepson 
and godson, of which Gaimar and Bromton speak and William does not. 
And where did the murder happen ? Gaimar makes it on the road to York 
without giving the name of the place. William says it was at Wherwell, 
but one manuscript adds, *' which is called Harewood." Bromton says 
" Wherwell," but he makes it, like Gaimar, some days' journey on the road 
between Salisbury and York. As far as I know, Wherwell is in Hamp- 
shire and Harewood in Yorkshire. There is certainly some confusion, but 
it looks as if the journey to York was part of the original story. 



THE REIGN OF EDWARD THE MARTYR, 183 

I have told you that I do not believe this story at all, and I 
have given you some of my reasons. I can only say that 
^Ifthryth was the daughter of Ordgar and widow of J^thel- 
wald. I do not know how ^thelwald died ; but if it is true 
that he was killed by robbers in a wood, we can at once see 
how the story began. 

§ 6. The Reign of King Edward the Martyr. 

975—978- 

As soon as King Edgar was dead, and before another King 
was chosen, there was a great movement against the monks. 
^^Ifhere, Alderman of the Mercians, and others of the chief 
men, began to turn the monks out of several churches and to 
bring the secular canons with their wives back again. But 
JEthelwine, Alderman of the East-Angles, whom men called 
'^ the Friend of God," gathered a meeting of the Wise Men of 
his own Earldom, and they determined to keep the monks, and 
they joined with Brihtnoth, Alderman of the East-Saxons, 
and they even got together an army to defend the monas- 
teries. Meanwhile there was a great question who should be 
King. Both the sons of Edgar were very young : ^^thelred 
was quite a cliild, about seven, Edward about thirteen. 
If there had been a brother of Edgar's living, no doubt he 
would have been chosen, but there was no brother, nor any 
one else, as far as one can see, very near of kin to the late 
King. So there was nothing to be done but to choose one of 
the boys. Some were for Edward and some for ^thelred. 
Of the two it was most natural to choose Edward, and King 
Edgar before he died had said that he wished it to be so. I for- 
get whether I have told you that, though a King of the English 
could not leave his crown as he pleased, yet the wishes of the 
late King always counted for a good deal with the Wise Men. 
So when the Wise Men met to choose a King, the two Arch- 
bishops, Dunstan and Oswald, insisted that Edward should be 
chosen, and so he was chosen and hallowed. There was a 
comet seen that year, and men thought that it foretold that 
great evils were to come upon the land. 



i84 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

As far as I can make out, the young King Edward did not 
put such complete trust in Dunstan as his father Edgar had 
done. At least we still hear of disputes going on, and of 
Alderman ^Ifhere turning out the monks. Also in the next 
year Oslac Earl of the Northumbrians, " the beloved, hoary- 
headed hero," as the Chronicle calls him, was driven into 
banishment. In the next year, 977, there were no less than 
three meetings of the Wise Men, at Kirtlington in Oxfordshire, 
and at Calne and Amesbury [Ambresbyrig] in Wiltshire, and 
all seem to have been called to settle these questions about 
monks and secular priests. In the meeting at Calne a strange 
accident took place, which people at the time called a miracle, 
and in which modern writers have suspected a trick, but which 
most likely was neither the one nor the other. The Wise Men 
were met in an upper room, and the floor gave way, and some 
were hurt and some killed ; only the beam on which Archbishop 
Dunstan stood remained firm, so that he was not hurt at all. 
After this, so at least William of Malmesbury says, people 
believed in him more than they had done before. 

The next year, 979, the young King Edward was murdered 
or, as they said at the time, martyred. Now certainly he was 
not really a martyr, either for the Christian Faith or for right 
and truth in any shape; but he was a good youth and was 
Unjustly and cruelly killed, so people looked on him as a sort 
of saint, and called him Edward the Martyr. The Chronicle 
greatly laments his death, and says that a worse deed had never 
been done since the English came into Britain. It does not 
however say who killed him, but only that he was killed at 
eventide at Corfes Gate. This is a place in Dorsetshire, now 
called Corfe Castle. It is called the Gate because it stands in 
a gap betv/een two great ranges of hills. Some fine ruins 
of the castle still remain, and a small part is most likely as 
old as the time of Edgar. Henry of Huntingdon says that 
Edward was killed by his own people. Florence says that 
he was killed by his own people by order of his step-mother 
^Ifthryth. William of Malmesbury, in another part of his 
book, says that Alderman ^Ifhere killed him, but in recording 
his death he attributes the crime to ^Elfthryth. If ^Ifthryth 
did it, it was no doubt to secure the succession to her son 



THE REIGN OF EDWARD THE MARTYR. 185 

^Ethelred ; if ^Ifhere did it, which I do not at all believe, he 
may have had some hope of being chosen King himself, as 
he is said to have been a kinsman of King Edgar's. I can 
only say for certain that Edward was murdered at Corfe ; and 
as Florence says that ^Ifthryth had a hand in his death, it is 
most likely that it was so. His body was buried at Wareham, 
which is very near Corfe, without any royal honours, but the 
next year, 980, Alderman ^Ifhere translated it with great 
pomp to King Alfred's minster at Shaftesbury. 

This is all I know, but I may as well add the story as William 
of Malmesbury gives it. 



%\t Stcrg 0f {\t Partgrbcm of 3^mg €irfoarir. 

When Edward the son of Edgar was King of the English, he 
was always good and kind to his step-mother ^Ifthryth and 
to her son ^thelred his brother. But ^Ifthryth hated him, 
for that she had wished her son ^thelred to be King, but the 
Wise Men had chosen Edward his brother before him. So 
^^Ifthryth ever sought how she might slay King Edward. 
Now one day King Edward was hunting in the land of the 
Dorsaetas. hard by the Gate of Corfe, where ^Ifthryth and 
^thelred her son dwelt. And the King was weary and thirsty, so 
he turned away alone from his hunting, and said, " Now will 
I go and rest myself at Corfe with my step-mother ^Ifthryth 
and JEthelred my brother." So King Edward rode to the 
gate of the house, and ^Ifthryth his step-mother came out 
to meet him, and kissed him. And he said, " Give me to 
drink, for I am thirsty." And ^Ifthryth commanded, and 
they brought him a cup, and he drank eagerly. But while he 
drank, ^Ifthryth made a sign o her servant, and he stabbed 
the King with a dagger ; and when the King felt the wound, he 
set spurs to his horse and tried to join his comrades w^ho were 
hunting. But he slipped from his horse, and his leg caught in 
the stirrup, so he was dragged along till he died, and the track 
of his blood showed whither he had gone. And ^Ifthryth 
bade that he should be buried at Wareham, but not in holy 
ground nor with any royal pomp. But a light from heaven 



1 86 OLD ENGLISH HIS TOR Y FOR CHILDREN, 

shone over his grave, and wonders were wrought there. And 
now fifthly th rejoiced greatly, but JEthelred her son wept 
when he heard that Edward his brother was slain, for that 
Edward had always been kind to him. Then was ^Ifthryth 
wroth, and she beat her son ^thelred because he wept for his 
brother. ^ But after a while she heard of all the mighty works 
which were done at the grave of King Edward, how the sick 
were healed and the lame walked, and she said, ^^ Lo, I will go 
even unto Wareham, and see whether these things be so or 
no." But when she mounted her horse to ride, the horse 
would not stir ; and her servants shouted and beat the horse, 
yet would he not stir. So ^Ifthryth saw that it was a wonder, 
and she repented of her sin that she had sinned, and she 
became a nun in the house of Wherwell which she and Edgar 
her husband had builded, and there she served God with 
prayers and fastings and watchings and scourgings all the rest 
of her days. Moreover ^Ifhere the Alderman repented that 
he had driven the servants of God out of so many minsters, 
and he took up the body of the holy King Edward, and 
carried it with all pomp to the minster at Shaftesbury. ^ And 
there all the holy virgins and godly widows lamented him, and 
many wonders were wrought by God at his tomb. 



I shall now end this chapter. I have gone through all the . 
Kings who reigned after the first Edward, the first King of 
the West-Saxons who became King of the English and Lord of 
all Britain down to the second Edward the son of Edgar. I 
stop here, because in the next reign, that of ^thelred, the 
Danish invasions begin again and go on till the Danes had 
conquered all England. 

1 A tale is added almost too ridiculous to put in the text. As ^Ifthryth 
had not a rod at hand, she beat her son with wax candles, wherefore 
^thelred ever hated wax candles, and would have none burned before him 
all the days of his life. 

2 In the Chronicle called that of Bromton all this is given at much 
greater length than by William of Malmesbury. 



CHAPTER X. 

HOW THE DANES CONQUERED AND REIGNED IN 
ENGLAND. 

§ I. The Reign of King ^thelred the Second. 

978 — 1016. 

We now come to a very different time from that of which we 
have been reading lately. Since the time of Alfred we have 
heard very little of actual invasions of the Danes. There has 
been constant fighting with the Danes who were already 
settled in England, up to the time when they were finally 
subdued under King Eadred. But the fighting was almost 
wholly with the Danes who were settled in England, or at 
most with those who came over from Ireland. We hear but 
Httle of any Danes actually coming from Denmark, and, when 
we do, it is only to help their brethren in Northumberland, 
not to conquer or plunder in other parts of the country. But 
now the Danish invasions begin again. They begin at first 
with mere plundering, such as we heard of long ago, as far 
back as King Beorhtric's time in Wessex. But the invasions 
gradually get quite another sort of character. W^e soon find 
Kings of all Denmark and of all Norway coming to England, 
not to plunder but to conquer, till at last a Danish King 
became King over all England. This is then what I before 
called the third stage of the Danish wars. The first was the 
stage of mere plundering ; the second was the stage of settle- 
ments like that of Guthorm-^thelstan ; this last stage is that 
of deliberate attempts to conquer the whole kingdom. 

The reason of this seems to be that some great changes had 



1 88 OLD ENGLISH HIS TOR V FOR CHILDREN. 

been lately going on in the North of Europe. Scandinavia, 
which had been before divided into a great many small princi- 
palities, had now settled down into three great kingdoms, 
Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. With the Swedes, whose 
country lay wholly on the Baltic, we in Britain had little or 
nothing to do ; but with the Danes and Norwegians, who had 
one side of their land to the Ocean, we had a great deal to 
do. The Danes were finally brought into one Kingdom by a 
King named Gorm, who, from the long time that he lived and 
reigned, was called Gorm the Old. If it really be true that he 
reigned from 840 to 935, he must have been very old indeed. 
But this is hardly possible, and the date of his death is much 
more certain than the date of his coming to the crown. The 
Danes have a great deal to say about this King Gorm and his 
wife Thyra. ^ They are said to have made the Dannewerk, the 
great dyke which was meant to defend Denmark against the 
Germans, and which was often spoken of in the late wars in 
those parts. Gorm's Kingdom took in the Danish Islands, 
Jutland, Scania, which is now part of Sweden, and the Northern 
part of Sleswick, that beyond the Dannewerk. In Charles the 
Great's time the boundary between Denmark and Germany 
had been the Eyder. But there were . often wars between the 
Danes and the Germans, especially as Gorm and most of his 
people were still heathens and persecuted such Christians as 
were in their country. So Henry, King of the East-Franks, 
called Henry the Fowler, came against Gorm and made him 
ask for peace and perhaps do homage. Then King Henry 
moved the boundary northwards from the Eyder to the Danne- 
werk, and made the country between them into a Mark or 
border land under a Margrave', and planted a Saxon colony 
there. Now though this Mark of Sleswick did not last very 
long, for the Danes in Cnut's time got the frontier of the Eyder 
again and kept it till our own days, still this German settle- 
ment north of the Eyder was the beginning of events of which 
the world has lately heard a great deal. Gorm the Old was 
succeeded by his son Harold, called Bluetooth, who reigned 

^ The Danish writer Saxo Grammaticus makes her out to have been one 
of the daughters of Edward the Elder (whom he calls ^thelred) aixl 
sisters of ^Ethelstan ; but this is very unlikely. 



THE REIGN OF ^THELRED, 189 

fifty years, from 935 to 985. We read a great deal of him in 
the history of Normandy, but not much in that of England ; 
only, as we have seen, the rebellious Northumbrians in Eadred's 
time chose his son Eric for their King. According to some 
accounts, Harold sent an army with Eric, but we do not hear of 
his invading or plundering anywhere but in Northumberland ; 
he had also wars with his neighbours to the south, and in 975 
the Emperor Otto the Second, son of Otto the Great, ravaged 
the whole of Jiitland, and obliged Harold to do homage and 
receive baptism. His son Svein, or in English Swegen, was 
also baptized, and was called Otto after the Emperor, who was 
his godfather. 1 Harold seems, in the last years of his reign, to 
have done what he could to settle Christianity in Denmark. 
But Swegen cast off Christianity and wished to bring back the 
worship of the old Gods. So he and those of the Danes who 
were heathens rebelled against the old King Harold, and he 
was beaten in battle and fled away and was either murdered 
or died of a wound. Swegen then became King and restored 
idolatry. There seems reason to believe that he had a hand 
in some of the first incursions into England of which we shall 
soon read. At any rate it is certain that, after he was King of 
the Danes, his great object was to conquer England. You will 
now understand that the three northern Kingdoms were much 
more united and powerful than they had been hitherto. For, 
though the Emperors had cut Denmark short to the south and 
had made some of the Danish Kings do homage, this did not 
greatly affect the power of the Danes to do damage in other 
places, and the Danes presently recovered what they had lost. 
And the other Kingdoms of Norway and Sweden were quite 
out of the reach of the Emperors. So it was no wonder that 
the incursions of the Northmen began again at this time on 
a greater scale than ever. 

After King Edward was dead, there was really no one to 
choose as King except his young brother ^thelred ; so ^thel- 
red was chosen and was hallowed at Kingston. He reigned 

1 Adam of Bremen says that he was called ** Sveinotto." I suppose that 
his former heathen name was Svein and that he was called Otto in baptism : 
but he is always called Svein, just as Guthorm and Rolf are always called 
by their old names, not ^thelstan and Robert. 



190 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

thirty-eight years, and the whole of his reign was one time of 
wretchedness and confusion. It is said that Dunstan, at his 
coronation, foretold what a wretched time it would be. As 
long as Dunstan lived, things were a little better ; but when he 
was gone, all the badness and weakness of ^thelred's character 
came out. He was perhaps the only thoroughly bad King 
among all the Kings of the English of the West-Saxon line ; he 
seems to have been weak, cowardly, cruel, and bad altogether. 
He was always doing things at wrong times and leaving undone 
what he should have done, so that he is called ^thelred the 
Unready, that is the man without rede or counsel. No doubt 
he had to struggle with very hard times, but the times now were 
no harder than the times which Alfred had to struggle against. 
We know how much he could do. 

Dunstan lived ten years after ^thelred became King. The 
invasions of the Danes had already begun ; we hear of them 
in 980, 981 and 982, but not again till 988, the year of Dun- 
stan's death. This interval seems to answer to the time when 
Swegen was at war with his father Harold. And no doubt, as 
long as Dunstan lived, some better care was taken of the 
country, though even then men must have missed King Edgar 
and his great fleet sailing round the land every year and keeping 
all enemies away. But, when Dunstan was dead, things grew 
from bad to worse; for in 991, by the advice of Sigeric, who 
was then Archbishop, and of the Aldermen ^thelweard^ and 
^Ifric, men began the foolish way of giving money to the 
Danes to persuade them to go away. Of course, as soon as 
they had spent the money, they came back again. This ^Ifric 
was Alderman of the Mercians ; he was a sad traitor, and we 
shall often hear of him again. 

The invasion of 988 was in our own part of the country, for 
the Danes harried Wecedport or Watchet, and Goda, a Devon- 
shire thane, and other good men were killed, but the Danes 
were at last beaten and driven away. In the course of these 

1 This ^thelweard seems to be the man who wrote the Latin Chronicle 
which I have sometimes quoted. He was of royal descent, being sprung 
from ^theh-ed the brother of Alfred ; but this kindred seems not to have 
been near enough to give him the title of ^theling, or for him to be 
thought of when men were choosing a King. 



THE REIGN OF .ETHELRED. 191 

years, from 978 to 991, we hear of a great many other misfortunes 
besides the coming of the Danes, such as a great murrain among 
cattle, a quarrel between the King and the Bishop of Rochester, 
in which ^thehed ravaged the Bishop's lands, and the burning 
of London in 982. As this is not said to have been done in 
any war or disturbance, it was most likely an accidental fire, 
like the more famous one in 1666. You must remember that 
in those days most of the houses were of wood, so that for a 
town to be burned was no very uncommon thing. In 991 there 
was a great invasion of the Danes or, as this time they seem 
more truly to have been, Norwegians, in the eastern part of 
England. There came two brothers called Justin and Guthmund, 
and with them there also seem.s to have come one whose name 
was Olaf. This is Olaf Tryggvesson, who was afterwards a very 
famous King of the Norwegians, and of whom we shall hear 
again. They harried or plundered Ipswich and then went into 
Essex, and sailed up the river Panta or Black water to Maldon. 
But then Brihtnoth the Alderman of the East-Saxons came 
against them, and there was a battle in which Brihtnoth, after 
fighting very bravely, was killed. You have heard of Brihtnoth 
before ; he was very bountiful to the monks, and helped to 
found the famous Abbey of Ely, which in Henry the First's time 
became a Bishoprick, and where is wdiat I suppose I may call 
altogether the grandest church in all England. There Brihtnoth 
was buried, and there his wife ^thelflsed ofiered a piece of 
tapestry, on which she had worked the picture of all her 
husband's great actions. I wish we had it now, as well as 
the Tapestry at Bayeux which is so useful for our history 
seventy years later. 

But I want you specially to remember Brihtnoth, because we 
still have the longest and grandest of our old songs, though it 
is not in the Chronicle, which describes the Battle of Maldon 
at length, though unluckily the beginning and the end of the 
song are both lost. I think that I cannot do better than give 
it you as I gave you the Song of Brunanburh, altering it from 
the Old-English as little as I can, but explaining such things as 
may need to be explained. I want you specially to take notice 
how nearly the whole song is about Brihtnoth's own personal 
following, his own Thanes and companion s, who were bound 



192 



OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 



to him by a special tie to fight for him and to avenge him. 
here I give you 

%\t Stritg of tijc Jigl^t of P^alboit. 



So 



Bade he then youths each 
Horse to forsake, 
Far to hasten, 
And forth to gang, 
To strive with hands. 

. That Offa's kinsman 
First out found 
That the Earl would not 
Wretchedness thole ;^ 
He let there of his hands 
Liefer 2 fly 

Hawk for the wood,^ 
And to the fight stepped. 
By that man might know 
That the knight would not 
Weak in the fight be. 
When he to weapons took. 
Eke to him would Eadric 
His Elder serve. 
His chief in fight ; 
Gan then forth to bear 
The spear in battle. 
He gave God thanks 
The while with hands 
Hold he might 



15 



25 



Board ^ and broadsword ; 

Troth then he plighted I 

That well before his lord ^ 

Fight he should. 

Then there Brihtnoth gan 30 

Warriors to trim.^ 

Rode he and rede gave, 

And his men he taught 

How they should stand 

And their stead 7 hold, 35 

And bade that their rounds ^ 

Right they hold 

Fast with hands. 

And at nothing frightened be. 

When he had the folk 40 

Fairly ytrimmed. 

He lighted there mid the men 

That to him liefest were 

Where he his hearth-bands ^ 

Most faithful wist. 45 

Then stood on the brink, 

Sternly calling. 

The wikings' herald ; 

With words he spake ; 

He then the threats bade 50 

Of the sea-farers, 

An errand to the Earl, 



1 Bear, endure. 

2 Leof^ dear. W^e still sometimes &ay, ^' I would as lief do a thing." In 
1. 43 we have the word liefest again in the sense of dearest. 

3 This sounds as if Brihtnoth was hawking when he heard of the enemy's 
landing, and let his hawk fly, and at once made ready for battle. But the 
whole of this part of the poem is mutilated and very obscure. 

4 The shield made of wood. 

^ Frea^ the masculine of the High Dutch Frau, but we have lost both 
words. 

6 To arrange, or marshal. "Warriors" is Beornas. Seethe song of 
Brunanburh, 1. 3. 

" Their place or rank. We talk of steady and instead. 

^ Their round shields. 

^ His household troops ; his companions bound to him by a special tie. 



THE REIGN OF yETHELRED. 



193 



There as he over 1 stood. 

" Me have sent to thee 

The seamen swift ; 2 55 

They bade to thee say 

That thou must rathly 3 send 

Bracelets ^ for safety ; 

And to you it better is 

That ye the spear- rush 60 

With gavel ^ buy off, 

Than that we so hard 

A battle deal. 

Need we not each other slay ; 

If ye speed ^ to this, 65 

We will with the gold 

A peace make fast. 

If thou this aredest, 

That here richest art, 

That thou thy people 70 

To loose ^ art willing ; 

To sells to seamen, 

At their own doom 9 

Fee ^^ with peace, 

And take peace with us, 75 



We will with the scot ^i 

To our ships gang, 

On the fleet to fare 12 

And with you peace hold." 

Brihtnoth out spake, 80 

His board ^^ heaving ; 

Shook he the weak ash ^^ 

With words spake he, 

Ireful ^^ and steadfast 

He gave them answer. 85 

" Hearest thou, sea-farer, 

What this folk sayeth ? 

They to you for ga.vel 

Spears will sell. 

The poisoned edge ^^ 90 

And the old sword, 

The harness ^" that you 

In fight shall help not. 

Sea-men's bode,^^ 

Bid back again, 95 

Say to thy people 

Mickle evil spell, 

That here stand undaunted 



1 Opposite. 2 Sjielle, High- Dutch scJinelL 

^ Swiftly ; we now use only the comparative rather. 

* Beagas, as ^T^thelstan, and Brihtnoth some way on, are called Beah-gifa, 
It is odd that this Teutonic word which w^e have lost should survive in the 
French bague. 

^ Gafol, tribute. ^ Agree. " Save, redeem. ^ Give, pay. 

^ That is, as much as the Danes should ask for. 

^^ Money. You will remember that this year 991 was the time in which 
money was first paid to the Northmen. 

^^ Treasure, payment, like High-Dutch ScJiatz. We still talk of "paying 
scot and lot," " going j-(f<9/-free, " &c. 

^^ To go = High -Dutch y^/zr^;2. We now use the word only metapho- 
rically, excepting when we talk of "waj^farers" and "seafaring men." 
See p. 122. 

^^ His shield. ■'•^ The slender shaft of ash wood. 

^•^ You must not think that ire is derived from the Latin ira, though of 
course it is cognate with it. Here the Old-English is '''Yrre and anraed." 

^^ This is the literal meaning, but we cannot think that our forefathers, 
we can hardly think that the Danes, really used poisoned weapons. I sup- 
pose it means only "sharp and deadly." 

^7 The word for "weapons" is heregeatu. Thence the heriot paid in 
certain cases by a vassal to his lord, being originally a gift of weapons. 

^^ Messenger, one bidden. 

O 



194 



OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 



An Earl with his band, 

That will defend lOO 

This our own land/ 

^thelred's home, 

Mine elder's, 2 

His folk and ground ; ^ 

Now shall fall 105 

Heathens in battle. ^ 

Too shameful me thinketh 

That ye with our scot 

To ships gang, 

Unbefoughten. no 

Now ye thus far hither 

On our earth 

In have yeomen, 

Ne shall ye so soft ^ 

Treasures go and win. 115 

Us shall point and edge 

Ere ^ judge between. 

Grim war-play. 



Ere we gavel sell. " 

Bade he then boards bear, 120 

And the men gang, 

Till they on the water-brink ^^ 

All stood. 

Ne might there for water 

Band come to others ; ^ 125 

There came flowing 

Flood after ebb ; 

Locked them^ the lake-streams ;^^ 

Too long it them thought ^^ 

When 12 they together 130 

Spears could bear. 

They there Panta's stream 

With throngs 1^ bestood. 

East- Saxons' front-rank, ^^ 

And the ash-host ; 1^ 135 

Nor might of them any 

Other hurt. 

But who through arrows flight 



1 The word is e\>el, which means a man's very own land, which he holds 
of nobody else. 

2 *'The home of ^thelred my Elder." You know what I have told you 
about the meaning of Ealdor and Ealdorman. See p. 35. In Latin of 
the time we might say, "^thelredus senior mens." 

^ *'Folc and foldan," but I cannot keep the alliteration in modern Eng- 
lish, as foldan does not mean 2<.fold^ which in Old-English \%fald. 

^ *' The heathen shall fallin battle." ^ Easily. 

^ ^r, cBrest. We use the words in a slightly different sense ; thus cer 
just below can quite be translated ere. In High-Dutch you know that 
erst is the common word iox first, 

^ Water here is ea, thence ealajtd^ which should in modern English be 
eyland, but which people spell, " wland," as if it had something to do with 
insula and isle. 

^ That is the water hindered the band from getting at the enemy. 

9 Locked \htTi\^ kept them from fighting. 

1^ Lagu-streamas. Lagit, lake, does not at all mean stagnant water only. 
In many names like Yid^xilake, Stan/<^>^^, &c., it means running water. 

^^ Thought, seemed, as we say methinks. ^^ Till. 

^^ *' Mid prasse bestodon." Nobody seems to know \n\v2X prasse means. 
Conybeare translated it throngs^ and I know nothing better. 

1^ Ord, point ; therefore the front rank. 

1^ ''^j-r-/zf;r," the host of the ship, that is the Northmen. One 
meaning of cesc or ash is ship^ as being made of ashen wood. Here (High- 
Dutch heer) is the word always used of the Danish armies. The levy of the | 
people of England isfyrd. 



THE REIGN OF MTHELRED, 



195 



Their fall could work.^ 

The flood out went ; 140 

The fleet-men stood ready, 

Wikings many 

For warfare eager. ^ 

Bade then the heroes' guard 3 

To hold the bridge 145 

A warman hard in war ; 

He hight Wulfstan, 

Quick with his kin, 

That was Ceola's son, 

Who the foremost man 150 

With his franca * ofif-shot, 

That there boldest 

On the bridge stepped. 

There stood with \Vulfstan^ 

Warmen unfearing, 155 

yElf here and Maccus, 

Moody ^ twain ; 

Who would not at the ford 

Flight work, 

And they fastly 160 



'Gainst the fiend 7 warded, 

The while that they might 

Wield their weapons. 

When they ^ that well knew, 

And saw with gladness, ^ 165 

That they ^"^ the bridge-wards 

Bitter found, 

Gan then to use guile 

The loathly guests. ^^ 

Prayed they then that they 170 

Up might gang, _ 

Over the ford might fare,^ 

And their bands lead. 

Then the Earl began, 

For his overmood.i^ 17^ 

To leave of land too much 

To the loathly people.^* 

Began to call then 

Over cold water 

Brihthelm's bairn ; ^^ 180 

The warriors listened. 

" Now to you is yielded, 



^ None could wound the enemy but those who could hit them and make 
them fall with arrows. 

^ Georne — High-Dutch gem. W^e have lost the noun and the adverb, 
but we keep the verb to yearn. 

3 " Helena hleo," "shelter or safeguard of heroes," meaning Brihtnoth. 
HcBle^ is the same as the High- Dutch Held. 

^ Franca., a javelin. Some say that hence comes the name of the 
Franks., and that of the Saxons from the seax or short-sword. 

^ You will see how exactly Wulfstan is like Horatius, and yElfhere and 
Maccus like Lartius and Herminius, in the "Lays of Ancient Rome." 

^ Modig, full of mood or spirit ; we use the word in a different sense, but 
in High-Dutch you have miith and miithig in the old sense. 

'^ The foe = High-Dutch y^/;2^. 

^ T/iey, that is the English. ^ Geoi-ne : see 1. 143. 

^^ T/iey, that is the Danes. The DanQsionnd the d?7dge-waj^ds — Wulfstan, 
yElfhere, and Maccus — diUer to them. 

^^ Gnests., strangers, enemies. So the Latin hostis at first meant only a 
stranger, and so Amompharetos in Herodotus calls the Persians \Clvoi. 

^^ Fare^ to go. See above, 1. 78. 

^^ His high spirit. 

^^ \>eod. We have quite lost the word, but it is found in many proper 
names, like Theodric, Theo(d)bald, &c., and we shall afterwards find 
\>eoden, lord, coming from it. 

1^ Brihthelm's son ; that is Brihtnoth. 

02' 



196 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

Go straightway to us, Glory in battle, 

Men ^ to battle ; Then was the tide ^^ ycome 205 

God only wots 185 That the fey ^^ men. 

Who shall hold fast There should fall. 

The place of slaughter." 2 Then were shouts a-heaved ; ^^ 

Waded then the slaugh ter- wolves, ^ Ravens wound round, 

For water they mourned 4 not. Ernes ^^ for corses greedy ; ^^ 210 

The wikings' host ; 190 On the earth was shouting. 

West over Panta, Then let they from their hands 

Over sheer 5 water. The file-hard spears,^^ 

Shields they carried : ^ The sharply grounden 

The shipmen to land Javelins fly ; 215 

Their lindens '^ bore. 195 Bows were busy. 

There gainst the fierce ones Boards the point received, ^^ 

Ready was standing Bitter was the war-rush ; 

Brihtnoth with warriors ; ^ Warriors fell ; 

With the boards hight he ^ On either hand 220 

Work the war-hedge, •'^^ 200 Youths lay dead. 

And made his host stand Wounded was Wulfm?er, 

Fast against foemen.^^ Rest from fight ^^ chose he. 

Then was it fought nigh,^^ Brihtnoth' s kinsman, ^^ 



1 Guma^ a man. See the Song of Brunanburh, 1. 99. 

2 The wcBl-stow, the field of battle. The old chroniclers, in recording a 
battle, always say which side kept possession of the wcslstow, as this was 
the sign of victory. So in old Greece, the defeated had to ask for their 
dead, which the victors were bound to give them. 

^ WcEl-wulfas ; of course the enemy. ^ Recked, cared. 

^ Pure, clear. ^ Wegon ; as if one could say ivayed. 

7 Shields of linden wood. 

^ Beornas, as before. ^ He kight, bade. 

^^ That is, he had made his men form the shield-wall, a sort of fortress 
made by holding their shields close together. This is described at the 
beginning of the poem. 

^^ Feondum, as before. ^^ Then the close combat began. 

^^ 7"/(^-time, as we say Christmas-//(f^, QY&n-tide and the like, in High- 
Dutch zeit. The tides of the sea are so called because they keep to a cer- 
tain known tide. 

^* F^ge men ; men doomed to death. See the Song of Brunanburh, 1. 22. 

^^ Lifted, upraised. 

^^ Eagles. See the Song of Brunanburh, 1. 124. 

17 Georn, as before. -^^ Sharpened hard with the file. 

1^ That is, the javelins stuck in the boards or shields. Onfeng from 
on/on, to take, seize hold of. We have lost the verb, but we have the noun 
fang. 

^^ Beadu-rcBs, yet another word for war. 

^1 ML^g, may, kinsman of any sort. 



THE REIGN OF ^THELRED. 197 

His sister's son,i 225 Their life to win,^ 

With bills was he Warriors with weapons. 

Sorely forhewn,^ Slaughter fell on earth ; 

There was to wikings Stood they stedfast ; 250 

Back- re ward given.^ Brihtnoth arrayed them : 

Heard I that Eadward 230 Bade he that each youth 

One man slew Should think on battle, 

Mightily with his sword ; Who with the Danes would 

From the blow warned'* he not, For their doom^ fight. 255 

When at his feet fell Raged ^^ then the war-hard man, ^^ 

The fey warrior ; ^ 235 Weapons up -hove he, 

Thereof to him his lord^ His board to shield him. 

Thanks said, And towards the warrior stepped '^'^ 

To him his bower-thane '^ Went then stedfast 260 

When he peace had. The Earl against the Churl, ^^ 

So were meeting, 240 Either for the other 

Stern of purpose. Evil was thinking. 

The youths in battle. Sent them the seaman 

Thought they gladly A southern dart,^^ 265 

Who there with spear-point Therewith wounded was 

Foremost might be 245 The lord of warriors ; ^^ 

From the fey men He shoved ^^ them with his shield, 

^ Among all the Teutonic nations, a sister's son was held to be almost 
as near to a man as his own children. 

'^ Forheawen ; that is cut down, mangled. 

^ Wi^erlean ; I have translated it literally, but one misses the fine old 
English word. 

^ That is, shrtmk or swerved. 

^ Cempa : we have lost the word, but it lives in High-Dutch in Kampf 
and other kindred words. 

^ \)eoden from Yeod or people, like Cyning from cyn. See 1. 177. 

7 Steward or chamberlain. Edward must have held this place in Briht- 
noth's house. 

^ That is, to struggle with the enemy, and win or take away their lives. 

9 The doo7n of the Danes ; that is, the victory of the English. 

^^ WSd, a verb, like the adjective wood^ a-iigry> sometimes mad; the word 
is, I believe, still used in Scotland. 

^^ That is, the Danish chief. 

^^ That is, stepped close to Brihtnoth. 

^^ The Earl is Brihtnoth ; the English poet calls the Danish leader a 
chtirl. On the words see p. 41. 

^^ This is said to mean a Southern, that is an English dart, hurled back 
again ; but this sounds very harsh. 

1^ That is, Brihtnoth. 

^^ Shoved. This is an instance of the way in which words, so to speak, 
go down in the world. We should not talk now of shoving in battle, but 
of pushing or thrusting. 



198 



OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 



That the shaft burst, 

And the spear snapped 270 

That it sprang again. 

Wrathful was the war-man ; 

He with his dart stung 1 

The proud wiking, 

That to him the wound gave. 275 

Skilled was the leader, 2 

He let his franca ^ wade ^ 

Through the youth's halse ; ^ 

His hand he guided 

That he from the robber^ 280 

His life he took away. 

Then he another 

Swiftly shot, 

That the corslet burst ; 

He was in breast wounded 285 

Through the ring-fold ; 

In his heart stood 

The poisoned point. 

Then was the Earl blithe, 

Laughed the moody '^ man, 290 

Said to his Maker thanks 

For the day's work 

That his Lord gave him ; 

Hurled then some fellow ^ 



A dart from his hands, 295 

From his hand it flew, 

That all- through it pierced 

Through the noble one, 

The Thane of ^thelred. 

By his half 9 stood 300 

A youth unwaxen,^^ 

A knight n in the war. 

He full quickly 

Drew from the warrior ^^ 

The bloody dart, 305 

Wulfstan's bairn [was he], 

Wulfmser the young. 

Let he the hard spear 

Fare ^^ once yet again ; ^"^ 

The point through -waded, 310 

That he on earth lay 

Who his chieftain ^^ ere^^ 

Sadly had reached. 

Then came a wily 

Fighting-man to the Earl ; 315 

He would the warrior's 

Bracelets ^'^ fetch away. 

His robe ^^ and rings. 

And jewelled sword. 

Then Brihtnoth drew 320 



^ We now use this word only of insects with stings^ but it used to mean 
to pierce in any way. In the Chronicle we read that Liofa stung Edmund. 

2 T\\.^fyrd-rinc, the man of the ^r^ or army : that is, Brihtnoth. 

^ See 1. 151- * Oo^ in a wider sense, like sting, 

5 Neck ; the word is used in Scotland still. 

^ Scea&a, one who does scathe or damage. 

7 See 1. 157. 

s That is, one of the enemy. The poet speaks contemptuously, as when 
he spoke of a churl, 

9 By his half: that is, by his side. We still speak of doing a thing on a 
man's behalf, 

^^ Not yet waxed or fully grown up. 

1^ Cniht first meant a boy or youth ; then a page or follower, and so on 
to his later use, changing its meaning, much like Thegn and other words. 

^^ The Beorn ; see above. That is, Brihtnoth. 

13 See 1. 78. 

1^ That is, he threw back the spear which had struck Brihtnoth. 

1^ See above, 1. 236. ^^ See 1. 117. ^^ Beagas, see 1. 58. 

1^ Reaf ; this seems to be one of the words which got into French from 
Teutonic, and which have come round to us again through French. 



THE REIGN OF yETHELRED. 



199 



His bill ^ out of sheath, 

Broad and brown-edged,^ 

And on the corslet smote ; ^ 

Rathly him then let ^ 

Of the shipmen some one, 

That he the Earl's 

Arm did mar. 

Fell then from his hands 

His sword of fallow ^ hilt, 

Nor might he hold 

The hard falchion, 

Or his weapon wield. 

Yet a word quoth 

The hoary war-man ; 

The dai'ing youths 

Bade he gang forth, 

His good companions.^ 

Might he not on feet long 

Fast now stand up ; 

He to heaven looked ; 

*' Thank Thee, Nations' Wielder, 

For all the good things "^ 

That I in the world have bode ; ^ 



Now I own, mild Maker, 

That I most have need 345 

That Thou to my ghost 

Good should grant, 
325 That my soul to Thee 

Now may make its way, 

To Thy kingdom, 350 

Lord of Angels, 

With peace ^ to journey. 
330 I am praying to Thee 

That it hell-liends i^ 

Hurt may never," 355 

Thereon hewed him 

The heathen soldiers ; ^i 
335 And both the warriors 

That near him by-stood ; 

^Ifnoth and Wulfmaer both 360 

Lay there on the ground 

By their lord ; ^^ 
340 Their lives they sold.^^ 

Then bowed ^^ they from the fight 

That there to be would not ; ^^ 365 

There were Odda's bairns 



1 Bill is commonly an axe ; here it must be a sword. 
^ Brown sword is a common epithet in old ballads. 

^ Literally slew, like schlageit in High-Dutch, but we can hardly use the 
word so. 

* Hindered, as several times in the Prayer Book. 
•^ Fallow, that is yellow or golden. 

^ Geferan. This is a word which seems to have fallen very low indeed, 
into gaffer. Bi\t/e7'e was a good word much later. 

^ ** Wy7t7ia ;'' we have lost the substantive, but we keep the word win- 
some. 

^ Bode, abode : that is, experienced or enjoyed. 
9 Fri"^, like the High-Dutch/r/>^^. 
/^ Hel-scea6as ; that is, fiends or daemons. See above, 1. 280. 
^^ Scealcas : servants, soldiers ; in High-Dutch Schalk. So in the proper 
name Gottschalk, in Low-Dutch Godescalc, and in Mearscealc, one who 
looks after mares or horses, the same as Marechal or Marshal, the word 
having come back to us through French. 
^^ Fyea; see 1. 28. 

^^ We still sometimes talk of men ** selling their lives dearly." 
^"^ That is, turned, ran away. 

^^ Noldon, "would no'," as if we could say nould. \\\ Old-English 
there are a great many negative words found in this way with an n at the 
beginning, as we still say one and none, ever and never ^ yea and nay. 



OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 



Erst 1 in flight ; 

Godric from battle [went], 

And the good man forsook 

That to him ofttimes 370 

Horses had given. ^ 

He leapt on the horse ^ 

That his lord had owned, ^ 

On the housings 

That it not right was,^ 375 

And his brothers wdth him 

Both hurried off, 

Godrinc and Godrig ; 

For battle they recked not. 

But went from the fight, 380 

And the wood sought they ; 

They fled to the fastness 

And their life guarded. 

And of men mo ^ [fled] 

Than it any reason was, 385 

If they the earnings ^ 

All had minded 

That he to their good 

To them had done ; 

As Offa on a day 390 



Ere to them said 

On the speech-stead,^ 

Where he a meeting had,^ 

That there moodily ^^ 

Many men spoke, 395 

That yet in battle 

Would not endure. 

There was fallen 

The folks' Elder, 

^thelred's Earl ; 400 

All then saw 

Of his hearth-companions ^^ 

That their lord lay [dead]. 

Then there went forth 

The proud Thanes, 405 

The undaunted men 

Hastened gladly ; ^^ 

They would then all 

One of two things, 

Either life forsake, 410 

Or the loved one ^^ wreak. -^^ 

So them emboldened 

The bairn of ^Elfric, 

Warrior of winters young 



^ First, foremost. Seel. 11 7, 

'^ Literally, "mares had sold ;" mare originally meaning a horse of any 
kind.' 

^ Eoh, a word which we have quite lost, cognate with the Latin equus 
and the Greek 'iinros. 

* You will remember that Brihtnoth did not fight on horseback, but 
rode to the field and then got down to fight. Godric got on the horse 
which was kept ready for the Earl. 

^ Because he had no right to ride the Earl's horse. 

^ Alore ; it is still sometimes used in verse. 

5^ Earnings^ that is, rewards. 

^ The place of speaking. 

9 "l?a he Gemot hcEfde^ I told you (see p. 131), how the separate 
Gemots or meetings of the different kingdoms still went on. 

i« Boldly, See 1. 157. 

^^ His own followers, the youths who attended him and fought near him. 
The word is "heorS [h.e2irth]-g-e neatas,^' a word that we have lost, but 
which is found in High-Dutch as " 'Eidgenossen,'' *' Bundesgenossen,'' &c. 

^^ Georne. See above, 1. 143. 

^^ That is, Brihtnoth. 

^* That is, to avenge. We cannot now talk of wreaking in this way, but 
we talk of wreaking vengeajice on any one. 



THE REIGN OF jETHELRED, 



With words spake. 415 

.•Elfwine thus quoth he. 

" The bold speeches mind 

That times have we oft 

At the mead^ spoken, 

When we on benches 420 

Our boasts upheaved, 

Heroes in hall. 

Round us is hard fight, 

Now may we ken 

Him that bold is. 425 

I will my high -birth ^ 

To all make known, 

That I was in Mercians 

Of mickle kin ; ^ 

Was mine old father ^ 430 

Ealdhelm hight, 

A wise Alderman, 

Rich in world's wealth.^ 

Neither on that folk ^ 

Shall the Thanes twit me ^ 435 

That I from this host 

Away would go 

To seek my home. 

Now mine Elder lieth 

Hewn down in battle ; 440 

To me is that harm most ; 

He was both my kinsman 



And my lord." 

Then he forth went 

On feud ^ minded. 445 

That he with spear-point 

One man reached 

Of the folk of the fleetmen, 

That he on earth lay 

Smitten down with his weapon. 450 

Again he his fellows ^ cheered ; 

Friends and companions, 

That they forth should go. 

Offa then spake. 

His ash- wood he shook, 455 

" How thou, ^Ifwine, hast' 

All our Thanes 

In need-time cheered. 

Now our lord lieth, 

The Earl on the earth, 460 

That of us each one 

Others should embolden, 

Warmen to the war, 

That while we weapons may 

Have and hold, 465 

The hard falchion, 

Spear and good sword. 

Us Godric hath. 

Base bairn of Odda, 

All betrayed. 470 



1 At the drinking of mead, that is at the feast, as a wedding feast is called 
a bride-ale, now cut short into bridal. 

^ yE^elo, nobility. The same word that we find in so many names and 
words, as ^Et/iehtsx)., ^thefing and yEthelinga-ig or Athelney. In High- 
Dutch th ey can still say adel. 

^ As we should say, " of a great family. " 

^ That is, grandfather. 

^ Wondd-scelig, happy or blessed in the world. In High-Dutch selzg 
still means blessed, but in English it has sunk into silly. 

^ Does this mean among the East- Angles as distinguished from his own 
^lercians ? 

" Another word that has gone down in the world. I remember an 
account of Saint John Baptist snubbing Herod. 

^ Fijeht, like the High-Dutch^/^/<^^. We can still talk of ha\ang a feud 
with any one. Here it means that he was minded to deal wrathfuUy with 
the enemy. 

9 The word is " winas" from ''wine," a word which we have quite lost, 
but which we find in so many proper names. Godwi7ze, " a good fellow ; " 
Leofivine, *' a dear fellow," &c. 



OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 



Weened there too many men, 

As he on mare^ rode 

Proudly through the fight, 

That it was our lord. 2 

Therefore was here in field 475 

The folk all scattered, 

The shield-wall ^ broken. 

Perish this his deed 

That he so many men 

To flight hath driven." 480 

Leofsuna spake out, 

And his linden heaved. 

His board ^ to guard him ; 

He to the warrior quoth, 

" I this promise" 485 

That I hence nill ^ 

Fly a footstep. 

But will further go. 

To wreak in the fight 

My lord and comrade. 490 

Nor by Stourmere ^ 

Any stedfast hero ^ 

With words need twit me, 

That I lordless 

Homeward should go, 495 

And wend from the fight ; 

But me shall weapons meet 

Point and iron." 

Full of ire he waded. 



Fought he [sted]fastly, 500 

On flight he thought not. 

Dunnere then quoth. 

His dart he made quake, 

The valiant churl. 

Over all he cleped ; ^ 505 

He bade that warriors each 

Brihtnoth should wreak ; 

*' Nought may he fear 

Who to wreak thinketh 

His lord among the folk, 510 

Nor for his life mourn. "^ 

Then they forth went, 

For life they recked not. 

Began then the house-men ^^ 

Hardly to fight, 515 

Fiercely spears bearing, 

And to God they prayed ^^ 

That they might wreak 

Their lord and comrade. 

And on their foes ^^ 520 

A fall might work. 

Then there a hostage gan 

Gladly to help ; 

He was in Northumberland 

Of a hard ^^ kin, 525 

Ecglaf 's bairn, 

^seferth was his name. 

Nought then feared he 



1 See above, 1. 371. 

2 They thought that Brihtnoth himself was flying when they saw Godric 
on Brihtnoth' s horse. 

^ See in the Song of Brunanburh, 1. 10, 1 1, and above, 1. 200. 

* See this too in the Song of Brunanburh, 1. 10, and above, 1. 120. 

^ On the negative words, see above, 1. 365. This particular word we 
keep in the phrase, "will he, nill he." 

^ A lake or fen in Essex, near which Leofsuna seems to have lived. 

'' See the Song of Brunanburh, 50. 

^ Called: we still sometimes use the participle ^r/^^. 

^ That is, think, care, reck. See 1. 189. 

^° ^^ Hired- jueit,''^ the men of the hired or court of the Aldermen ; his own 
personal companions and followers. Do not think it means men hired 
with money. 

11 Bcedon ; as in High-Dutch bittejt^ and as we talk of a bedesvci2cs\ and 
of telling beads. 

^* ^\x\q.\\^ fiends. See above, 1. i6i. 

^* Stout, valiant. 



THE REIGN OE jETHELRED. 



203 



In the war-play, 

And he poured forth 530 

Arrows enough ; 

One while he on board 1 shot, 

One while a warrior teased,^ 

Ever and anon ^ he sold ^ 

Some wounds, 535 

The while he weapons 

Still might wield. 

Then yet in rank ^ stood 

Eadward the Long, 

Ready and yearnful ; ^ 540 

Bold words spake he 

That he would not flee 

A footstep of land, 

Overback to bow, 

While his better lay. 545 

He broke the board-wall. 

And with the warriors fought, 

Till he his gift giver ^ 

On the seamen 

Worthily wreaked, 550 

Ere he in slaughter lay. 

So did ^theric, 

Noble comrade, 

Eager forth to go, ^ 



Fought he eaniestly, 555 

Sibriht's brother, 

And so many other 

Clave the keeled board. ^ 

Keen they were. 

Burst they the boards, 560 

And the hauberk sang 

A grisly lay.^^ 

There in the fight slew 

Offa the seamen. 

Till he on earth fell, 565 

And Gadda's kinsman 

The ground sought ; 

Rath was in battle 

Offa down hewn. 

Yet had he furthered 11 570 

That he his lord had pledged, 

As he ere agreed 

With his ring-giver 1^ 

That they should both 

To the borough ride 575 

Hale 1^ to home, 

Or in the host cringe ^^ 

On the slaughter- place, 

Of their wounds die. 

He lay thanehke ^^ 580 



^ See above, 1. 483. 

'^ That is, troubled, an^ioyed, wounded ; here is another word which has 
sadly come down in the world. 

^ ** ^fre embe stunde." *' Ever from time to time." ^^ Stunde'''' in High- 
Dutch has got the special sense of hotcj-. 

* Gave, as above. See p. 122. 

^ Ord, the word often used for point or edge ; here the edge of the army. 

^ Yearning, eager. See above, 1. 143. 

7 He who had given him gifts or treasures, his hlaford Brihtnoth. 

^ *' Fiis 2.xi^ for'^georn " z= forth glad, eager to go forth. 

^ The shield from its cursxd shape, like the keel of a ship. 

10 "Gryre leo5e." That is, made a fearful noise. " LeoS'e" is the same 
as the High- Dutch Lied. This word again has come back to us in a nevr 
shape, through the French lai. 

1^ Carried out as far as he could. 

^^ " Beah-gifa." See at the beginning of the Song of Brunanburh, and 
above, 1. 58. 

1^ That is, unhurt in the battle. 

^^ Fall, die. See in the Song of Brunanburh, 1. 20. 

^^ \>egenlice ; like a Thane, like a good and faithful follower, falling back 
on the first meaning of \>egejz. 



204 



OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 



His lord hard by. 

Then were boards broken, 

Seamen waded on, 

In the fight wrathful. 

The spear oft waded through 585 

The fey man's life -house. ••■ 

Forth then went Wistan 

Thurstan's son. 

With the warmen fought he, 

He was in the throng, 590 

Banesman ^ of three of them, 

Ere him Wigeline's bairn 

In slaughter low laid. 

There was stern meeting ; ^ 

Stood they fast 595 

Fighters in battle ; 

Fighting they cringed, 

With their wounds weary ; 

Slaughter fell on earth. 

Oswold and Ealdwold 600 

All the while. 

Both brethren. 

The warriors trimmed ; ^ 

Their fellow-kinsmen 

With words they bade, 605 

That they there at need 

Them should bear up, 

And un weakly ^ 

Their weapons use. 

Brihtwold then spoke, 610 

His board heaving. 

He was an old comrade ; ^ 



His ash 7 he made quake ; 

He full boldly 

The warriors learned ; ^ 615 

* * Mind shall the harder be, 

Heart shall the keener be. 

Mood shall the more be. 

As our main ^ lessens. ^^ 

Here lies our Elder, 620 

All down hewn, 

A good man in the dust ; 

Ever may he groan 

Who now from this war-play 

Of wending thinketh. 625 

I am old of life ; 

Hence stir will I not, 

And I by the half ^^ 

Of my lord, 

By such a loved man 630 

To lie am thinking." 

So ^thelgar's bairn 

Then all cheered on, 

Godric to battle : 

Oft he the dart let go, 635 

The death spear wound he ^"^ 

On the wikings. 

So he on the folk 

The foremost went. 

He hewed and slew them 640 

Till he in fight cringed. 

This v/as not the Godric 

Who from the fight fled.^^ 



^ That is, his body. 

^ Bdna, a bane, a destructive person ; we now use the word only ot 
things. That is, he killed three of the enemy. 

^ Gemot. See the Song of Brunanburh, 1. 99. 

* See above, 1. 41. ^ That is, strongly. 

^ Geneat. See above. 7 See above, 1. 82. 

® Lcei^an, like the High-Dutch lehren. In the Psalms we say, " learn me 
thy statutes." 

^ McBgeii, strength ; as we say with his might and main. 

^^ " Lytla^,^^ grows little ; but we have lost the verb. 

^^ See above, 1. 300. 

^^ Made go in a winding course. 

1^ Forbah ; literally bowed before the fight ; that is, was afraid and ran 
away. 



THE REIGN OF ALTHELRED, 205 

So the brave and good Alderman Brihtnoth died. It is a great 
pity that there were so few men like him. You see how he 
refused to pay money to the invaders, but it was in this very 
year, after Brihtnoth was dead, that Archbishop Sigeric and 
the two Aldermen advised paying money. They paid ten 
thousand pounds, a very large sum in those days, to Justin, 
Guthmund, and Olaf In after times men had to pay much 
larger sums still. 

Still, after all this, the English in 992 showed some spirit to 
resist. The King and his Wise Men ordered a fleet to be got 
together at London, and so it was. But Alderman ^Ifric, who 
was one of the commanders, sent word to the Danes and after- 
wards joined them himself However, the English put both 
him and the Danes to flight, and took ^Ifric's ship, but he 
himself escaped. It was no doubt out of vengeance for this 
treason of ^Ifric's that King ^thelred next year caused the 
eyes of ^Elfric's son ^Ifgar to be put out. And a base and 
cruel deed it was, as there is nothing to show that ^Ifgar had 
any hand in his father's crime. The same year, 993, the Danes 
harried a great part of Northumberland and also Lindesey,^ 
that is, the northern part of Lincolnshire. The people resisted 
them bravely, but their three leaders,^ Fr^na, Frithegist, and 
Godwine, being themselves of Danish descent, took to flight, 
and so betrayed them to the enemy. 

It is not quite certain whether Swegen himself, Swegen with 
the Forked Beard as he was called, had any hand in these 
earlier invasions, but the Chronicle distinctly tells us that Swegen 
and ^' Anlaf " came in 994. This Anlaf was Olaf Tr}^gg^^esson, 
of whom you heard at Maldon, and who was now King of the 
Nonvegians or Northmen. So we now have two Kings of all 
Denmark and of all Nonvay coming against England. They 
first attacked London, where the citizens bravely beat them off, 
and then they ravaged the south coast of England. But again 
King ^thelred could think of nothing better than to give them 

1 Lindesey, or Lindesige^ the isle of Lindum. Do not forget that Lincoln 
is Lindi Colo7iia. 

2 Heretogas, leaders in war, the same word as the High-German Herzog. 
The Heretoga in war is the same as the Alderman in peace, but it does not 
follow that all these three had the rank of Alderman. 



2o6 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN, 

more money. So they stayed through the winter at Southampton, 
and seemingly did no more damage, at least not till they wanted 
more money. But King ^thelred sent ^Ifheah Bishop of 
Winchester^ and Alderman ^^thelweard to King Olaf, and they 
brought him to Andover, where the King was. Olaf was now 
a Christian. Some say that the year before, when he was 
twenty-five years old, he had been on one of his voyages to 
the Orkneys, where Sigurd the Earl of the country persuaded 
him to be baptized. The Orkneys were then inhabited by Not- 
wegian settlers, and had an Earl of their own. Others say that 
he was converted by an Abbot in the Scilly Islands. So Olaf 
and y^thelred made a treaty; and yEthelred had Olaf con- 
firmed by Bishop ^Ifheah and adopted him as his son. Olaf 
then promised that he would never invade England again, and 
he kept his promise very faithfully. He became a zealous 
Christian, and the introduction of Christianity into Norway is 
in a great measure owing to him. But he did not set about it in 
the same good and wise way as our own Kings ^Ethelberht and 
Edwin, who won over their people by persuasion and their own 
example. For King Olaf Tryggvesson compelled his people to 
become Christians whether they would or not, and cruelly per- 
secuted those who stuck to the old Gods. At last he died in a 
sea-fight against Swegen of Denmark. 

From this time we have no m^ore to do with invasions from 
Norway till Harold Hardrada came against our King Harold 
seventy years after. But we have a great deal more to do with 
Swegen Forkbeard and his Danes. It is very hard to put the 
English and Danish stories together. According to some ac- 
counts, Swegen had once been driven out of his Kingdom by 
Eric, King of the Swedes. He' then wandered about, seeking 
a refuge first in Norway and then in England. But Hakon the 
King of the Norwegians would not take him in, neither would 
our King ^thelred. So he went to the King of Scots, and 
stayed with him till he was able to get back to his own King- 
dom. So Swegen remembered the wrong, as he called it, that 

1 This ^Ifheah was afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, and was 
martyred in a way that I shall tell you of. He is generally called Saint 
Alpkege, but that makes nonsense of his name, which is Mlf-heak^ Elf- 
high ; you know how many names come from the elves. 



THE REIGN OF yETHELRED, 207 

^thelred had done him, and he invaded England to avenge it 
I do not know how this may have been, but that both Swegen 
and Olaf came into England in 994 is quite certain. Olaf, as 
we have seen, went home and kept his promise honom-ably, 
but Swegen's fleet and army stayed, and in 997 they began to 
plunder again, sailing up the Bristol Channel, plundering again 
at Watchet and other places on both sides. They then doubled 
the Land's End, and burned the minster at Tavistock, which 
had been built by Alderman Ordgar, the father of the Lady 
^Ifthryth. The next year, 998, they ravaged Dorsetshire and 
Wight and got provisions from ' Hampshire and Sussex, and 
defeated the English whenever they came against them. 
The next year, 999, they besieged Rochester and defeated 
the Kentishmen who came to help the town, and then, 
getting themselves horses, they ravaged all Kent. Then at 
last King ^^thelred thought it was time to do something, and 
he and the Wise Men ordered that a fleet and army should be 
got ready. But when they came together, they only made 
matters worse ; for the soldiers and their leaders oppressed the 
people and did nothing against the enemy. We may suppose 
that things would have been very different if King Edgar had 
been in the fleet, or if Alfred or Edward or ^thelstan or 
Edmund had been there to lead the people to battle. 

The next year was the year loco. It really seems like mad- 
ness when we read that .^thelred, who could not or would not 
defend Wessex against the Danes, must needs go and ravage 
Cumberland. Our own earliest accounts give no reason at all 
for this. Henry of Huntingdon indeed makes it an expedition 
against the Danes, who he says were settled in Cumberland,^ 
and he says that the Danes were defeated. But I cannot help 
thinking that, if it had been an expedition against Danes, the 
Chronicle would have made it more clear. And there is 
another account which, though it is found only in a much later 
Scottish writer named John Fordun, seems very likely in itself. 
King ^thelred called on Malcolm, the Under-king of Cum- 
berland, to give him money towards paying the Danes. ^ Mal- 

1 *' Maxima mansio Dacorum." The Danes are, oddly enough, often 
called Dari. 

2 That is, he wanted him to pay the tax called Danegeld^ or money 



2o8 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

colm answered that he had never promised to pay money for 
anything, but only to follow the King of the English in war ; 
and he added that it was disgraceful to pay money to the enemy. 
So Malcolm said that if the King would go out to battle against 
the Danes, he would go too, according to his duty, but that he 
would not pay any money. Alfred or Edgar would have been 
delighted with such a vassal, but this foolish and wicked ^theh 
red was angry with him, and took the trouble to go all the way 
to Cumberland to punish Malcolm by harrying his country, while 
the Danes were still in the English Channel. He ordered his 
fleet to sail round North Wales and meet him in Cumberland. 
But the fleet got no further than the Isle of Man, which was 
harried, we are not told why ; perhaps the King of Man had 
made the same answer as Malcolm. 

And now we come to a matter which, if it really happened, 
as seems most likely, shows JEthelred to have been even more 
utterly senseless than he seems in this Cumbrian expedition. 
You know how very little England had hitherto had to do with 
the countries on the Continent, and how the httle that England 
has had to do with them had been almost wholly of a friendly 
kind. We have now and then seen a marriage or a treaty, but 
there has not been a single war between England and the 
Emperors or the Kings of the West-Franks or any other foreign 
princes. There has been plenty of fighting, but it has always 
been either with the other nations in Britain or else with the 
Danes who invaded the land. You will indeed think that this 
was a strange time, when the Danes were harrying the country 
everpvhere, for ^thelred to rush into a war on the Continent. 
Yet it really seems to have been so. We have indeed no distinct 
account in our own v/riters, but the Norman vmters tell of it ; 
and though their account is most likely exaggerated, it seems on 
the whole more likely that our writers have passed it by or slurred 
it over than that the Normans should have altogether invented 
it. So I tell the tale as a thing which is very hkely, without 
being quite certain about it. This same year then, the year 
looo, jEthelred sent his fleet to invade Normandy, or, as the 
Chronicle calls it, Ricardesrice^ just as Flanders is called Bald- 

for paying the Danes, an impost which begin now and lasted long after 
there were any Danes to pay. 



THE REIGX OF yETHELRED. 209 

winesland. The Duke of the Normans now was Richard the 
Second, called Richard the Good. He was the son of Richard 
the Fearless, w^ho was the son of William of the Long Sword, 
who was the son of Rolf Ganger. Richard the Fearless reigned 
from 941 to 996, and Richard the Good reigned from 996 to 
1026 ; so it is not wonderful if it seemed as if the Duke of the 
Nonnans must always be a Richard. The land was hardly yet 
called Normandy ; so our people seem to have called it Richard's 
rice^ or dominion. The Normans had now become quite 
French in their ways, and they spoke the French tongue. You 
see I do not mind saying French now, because the old German 
Kings of the West-Franks, the Karlings who reigned at Laon, 
had come to an end. In 987 Hugh, commonly called Hugh 
Capet, who was Lord of Paris and Duke of the French, was 
chosen King of the French, and his city of Paris became the 
royal city and has remained so ever since. Moreover the 
descendants of Hugh vv^ere Kings in France all the time 
from 987 to 1848, save only the years from 1792 to 181 4, 
during part of which years there w^as a Republic and afterwards 
Napoleon Buonaparte was Tyrant. No royal house has ever 
lasted so long in the male line as the house of the Kings of Paris. 
These kings gradually got into their o^^m hands nearly all the 
dominions of their own vassals, besides conquering and ^^inning 
in one way and another a great part of Germany and Burgundy. 
So that now, whereas the real old frontier of France was the 
Rhone and the Saone, France now reaches in some places to 
the x\lps and even to the Rhine. But for a long time these new 
Kings, though they called themselves Kings of the French, had 
very little power beyond their o^^TL Duchy of Paris. In Aqui- 
taine for a long time nobody took any notice of them at all ; 
and though the Dukes of the Normans called themselves their 
vassals, they were really quite independent. Now these Paris 
Kings did not speak German like the descendants of Charles 
the Great, and the German tongue seems now to have quite 
died out in the Western Kingdom. And from this time 
the Eastern and Western Kingdoms had nothing to do with 
one another. So now that the two Kingdoms are quite 

^ The same word as the High-Dutch Reich. We keep it in the endings 
of words in the shape oirick zxAry, as BishoprzVy^, Jew?j, &c. 

P 



210 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

separate, and as the West has got a new language and a new 
capital and a new line of Kings, I shall leave off talking about 
the Franks or West-Franks and talk of the French, But I shall 
perhaps sometimes talk of Gaul still, because the whole land 
was still called Gallia^ and Francia generally means only the 
King's own dominions. The King of the French then at this 
time was Robert the son of Hugh, and the Duke of the Nor- 
mans, as I said, was Richard the Good. The Normans, as I 
told you, had now all learned to speak French, unless perhaps 
a little Danish was still spoken at Bayeux. Still the Normans 
kept up a certain friendship for their former brethren in Den- 
mark, and King Harold Bluetooth proved a very good friend 
to Duke Richard the Fearless more than once. The Normans 
had before this offended JEthelred by receiving Danish ships 
into their ports and letting them sell the plunder that they had 
taken in England, ^thehed and Duke Richard the Fearless 
had once before, in 991, quarrelled about this matter, and were 
very nearly coming to a war. But Pope John the Fifteenth, 
acting as a Pope should act but as the Popes did not very 
often act, stepped in and made peace between them. This 
time, in 1000, if our story be true, ^thelred sent his fleet 
against Normandy. According to the Norman account, he 
bade his people ravage the whole land, save only Saint Mi- 
chael's Mount and the great monastery on it, which they 
were to spare. As for Duke Richard, they were to bring him 
to England with his hands tied behind his back. Foolish 
as ^thelred was, we need not believe that he was quite so 
foolish as all this. So the fleet went over and they began 
to harry the peninsula of Coutances— the great peninsula of 
Normandy, the only peninsula in Europe, except Jiitland, which 
looks to the North. But Nigel or Neal, Viscount of Saint 
Saviour's, led the people of the country against the English, 
and drove them away, without Duke Richard having any need 
to help them. So King ^thelred's great expedition came to 
nothing. But from this time begins the connexion between 
England and Normandy, of which w^e shall soon hear so much ; 
for ^thelred and Richard soon became friends, and in 1002 
^thelred married Emma the sister of Richard. He had been 
manied before to an English wife, whose name is not quite 



THE REIGN OF ^THELRED. 211 

certain, as she is not mentioned in the Chronicle, and later 
writers call her by different names and make her the daughter 
of different fathers. By her ^thelred had many sons and 
daughters. The eldest seems to have been ^thelstan, but 
the most famous was Edmund, who was afterwards King, and 
who was called Ironside, from his great strength and daring. I 
suppose that his mother was now dead, for^thelred now married 
Emma, the first foreign Lady that we have seen since Judith the 
wife of ^thelwulf Many of our Kings' daughters had married 
foreign princes, but none of our Kings from ^thelwulf to 
^thelred had married any foreign prince's daughter. Emma 
was a clever and beautiful woman, and we shall hear a great 
deal of her for the next fifty years or so, but I cannot say that we 
shall hear much good. Perhaps you will be surprised to hear 
that the English did not like her name, and thought it so strange 
that she w^as called in England ^Ifgifu. We now know the name 
of Emma very well, and we should think JElfgifu a strange name. 
That is because we have dropped our good Old-English names, 
all but a few, and have taken to foreign names instead. 

All this while the Danes were going about as usual. In the 
year looi they attacked Exeter, but were driven off by the 
citizens ; they then ravaged all Devonshire, and defeated the 
Defnssetas and Sumorssetas in a battle at Penhow near Exeter, 
and went back to their ships with much spoil, and harried all 
Wight, Hampshire and Dorsetshire. The next year, the year of 
the King's marriage, he again gave them money to go away, 
but afterwards, later in the year, he caused all the Danes who 
stayed in England to be massacred. This was done on Saint 
Brice's day, 1002. It is said that no age or sex was spared, 
and that among those who were killed was Gunhild the sister 
of King Swegen, who was a Christian, and who was living in 
England. She was the wife of one Pallig, a Danish Earl, who 
had entered ^thelred's service and had then gone over to the 
Danes again, ^thelred, who put out the eyes of ^Ifric's son, 
would be quite capable of putting her to death for her hus- 
band's treason. We are told that Gunhild's husband and her 
young son were both killed before her eyes, and that before she 
died she foretold the woes that would come because of this 
wicked deed. But there is no doubt much exaggeration in this 

p 2 



212 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN, 

story, as it cannot be true that all the Danes in England were 
killed, when all the chief men of a large part of England 
were in one sense Danes. It can only mean the Danes who 
had stayed behind from Swegen's army. The reason given 
is that they had made a conspiracy to kill the King and his 
Wise Men, and to seize all the country for themselves. If 
this was so, it still could not be right to kill them all in this 
way without trial. And besides its being wicked, nothing 
could be more foolish. Such an act could do nothing except 
enrage Swegen and put him in some sort in the right. It is 
said that ^thelred was advised to do this by one Eadric, sur- 
named Streona, a man of low birth, who became his chief 
favourite, and to whom he gave his daughter Edith in marriage. 
Of this Eadric we shall hear a great deal for some years. All 
this, you will remember, was done just after the King's mar- 
riage ; a strange beginning for his young wife. 

You may suppose that Swegen came again next year, more 
angry than ever because of the murder of his sister and of so many 
of his people. He again besieged Exeter, whose brave citizens 
had driven him off so gallantly two years before. But things 
were different now ; the commander was ^' the French churl^ 
Huga, whom the Lady had set there to reeve." You see that 
the King's wife is still, according to the old West-Saxon law, 
spoken of only as the Lady and not as the Queen. Indeed 
she is always called so in the Chronicle,^ save once or twice at 
a later time, so that I have been wrong if I have ever spoken 
of a West-Saxon King's wife as Queen. Exeter had been 
given to Emma as her marriage-gift, and she had used her 
power only to bestow a high office on one of her countrymen. 
Here we have the first Norman who ever held any command 
in England, and a bad beginning it was. Hugh was either 
careless or treacherous \ so Swegen took and plundered the 
city and broke down a great part of the fine stone wall that 
King ^thelstan had built. Then he went away into Wiltshire, 

1 It is ceo7'l\Vi all the versions of the Chronicle, but Florence has *^Nort- 
mannici comitis^^'' as if he had read eorl. 

2 In the Chronicle for 888 Alfred's sister ^thelswith is called Queen, but 
she was wife of Burhred King of the Mercians, in whose Kingdom the 
West- Saxon law would not be in force. 



THE REIGN OF ^THELRED, 213 

and there the men of that shire and of Hampshire were 
gathered together, bravely to resist him. But here again there 
was a traitor in command; JEthelred had let ^Ifric come back 
again, and had put him at the head of an army. ^Ifric pre- 
tended to be sick and would do nothing ; so the army dis- 
persed, much against their will. So Swegen burned the towns 
of Wilton and Salisbury — that is, of course, Old Sarum — and 
went back to his ships. 

In Devonshire and in Wiltshire the people were quite ready 
to fight, but they had no leaders. In the next part of England 
that Swegen attacked, the leader was all that could be wished, 
but the people were in fault. This was in East-Anglia in the 
next year, 1004. Here, you may remember, the people were 
largely Danes, descendants of those who had settled under 
Guthorm, so they were not so ready to fight against a Danish 
King as the Saxons in Wiltshire, and the mixed Saxons and 
Welsh in Devonshire and Somersetshire. Swegen went first 
against Norwich and harried and burned the town. The 
Alderman or Earl of the East-iVngles at this time was named 
Ulfcytel, whose name shows that he was of Danish descent. 
Like Eadric, he had married one of the King's daughters, Wulf- 
hild by name ; but he was very different from Eadric. For he 
was a brave man and did his duty well. Yet even he at first 
consulted with the Wise Men of the East- Angles,^ and they 
agreed, as the King has so often done, to buy peace of Swegen, 
before he did any more harm. But when Swegen broke his 
promise, and, instead of going away, left his ships and went up 
the country to Thetford, then Alderman Ulfcytel bade his men 
go and destroy the ships. But his men disobeyed him. How- 
ever he got together such troops as he could, and fell upon 
Swegen as he had just harried and burned Thetford, and was 
going back to his ships. The Danes said that their battle 
with Ulfcytel was the hardest "handplay" they had ever had 
in England. Many men were killed on both sides, and it 
seems to have been what is called a drawn battle, where the 
victory is not very clearly on either side. However, this brave 
resistance of Ulfcytel seems to have done some good, as we 

^ This shows that East-Anglia was still distinct enough to have its own 
Assembly under its own Alderman. 



214 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN, 

hear of no plundering the next year, but the fleet went back to 
Denmark and stayed there a httle while. But that year, 1005, 
though there was no war to ravage the land, there was a dreadful 
famine. In 1006 ^Ifheah, Bishop of Winchester, who, I told 
you, is commonly called Saint Alphege, became Archbishop of 
Canterbury ; we shall hear of him again. And some cruel 
things were done through the influence of the King's wicked 
favourite Eadric, which must have withdrawn the minds of the 
people still more from ^thelred and his government. There 
was one Wulfgeat, who had been a chief favourite, who was 
driven from all his honours and his goods seized. This is said 
to have been because of his misconduct in office, but it looks 
very much as if it were done to please the new favourite Eadric. 
And there is no doubt that Eadric caused ^Ifhelm, Earl of 
Deira, to be treacherously murdered at Shrewsbury. Eadric 
bade him to a feast, and on the third day took him out on a 
hunting party ; but suddenly the town-hangman, whom Eadric 
had bribed and put in ambush, sprang out upon the Earl and 
killed him. And presently ^Ifhelm's two sons had their 
eyes put out. One can hardly wonder that men would not fight 
well for such a King. However, the Danes came again in July 
this year (1006), and King ^thelred got together an army 
against them, but the Danes never would fight a pitched battle, 
but ravaged the whole of Wessex, getting much further inland 
than they had ever done before, namely to Reading and 
Wallingford, both which towns they burned. The furthest 
points from the sea that they had reached before were Salisbury 
in Wessex and Thetford in East-Anglia ; but now you see they 
had got quite into the heart of England. So the King and his 
Wise Men promised to give them more money, which was paid 
next year (1007), and they went away and did not come again 
for two years. King ^thelred now made his favourite Eadric 
Alderman of the Mercians, which no doubt added to the dis- 
content of the people. 

This year (1006) there was also an invasion of the Scots. 
Malcolm King of Scots,"^ the son of Kenneth, came and be- 

1 This story comes from Simeon of Durham, who, as I have often said, 
is very good authority for Northumbrian matters, but he has put it in a 
wrong year, 979 ; it must have been in 1006. 



THE REIGN OF ^THELRED. 215 

sieged the new city of Durham. Waltheof, the Earl of Bernicia, 
was old and did nothing, but his son Uhtred, being a brave 
young man, got together a band both from Bernicia and Deira. 
He then fell on the Scots, killed most of them, and put their 
King to flight. He then took those among the heads of the 
slain Scots which had the finest hair, and caused four women to 
wash them, and then he set the heads on the walls of Durham, 
and gave each of the women a cow for her pains. For this 
service King ^thelred gave Uhtred not only his father's 
government, but also that of York or Deira, so that he was 
Earl of all Northumberland. You will remember that King 
Edgar had divided Northumberland between two Earls. Of 
this Earl Uhtred we shall hear a good deal again. He was a 
brave man, as you see, but he did some strange things. He 
put away his wife, who was the daughter of Ealdhun, the first 
Bishop of Durham, to marry the daughter of a rich man 
named Styr the son of Ulf (evidently a Dane), on condition 
that he should kill Styr's enemy Thurbrand. This he failed to 
do, and we shall see what came of it. But afterwards he put 
away Styr's daughter too, and married the King's daughter 
^Ifgifu. 

In the year 1008, however, ^thelred seems to have acted 
rather more wisely ; for he took advantage of the time when 
the Danes were away to get together a great fleet. The Wise 
Men ordered that one ship should be built for every 310 hides 
of land all over England. That is, I suppose, the owners of 
that quantity of land were to join together to have one ship 
built. The fleet was made, and it was stationed at Sandwich 
next year.^ But in this reign everything went wrong. There 
was one Wulfnoth, a South-Saxon " child " or thane, who was 
one of the captains. He was falsely accused to the King 
by Brihtric^ the brother of Eadric, who seems to have been 
as bad as Eadric himself. So Wulfnoth, for fear of being 
seized, fled away with twenty of the ships^ and turned Sea-king 

1 Henry of Huntingdon says that ^Ethelred now sent to his brother-in- 
law Duke Richard for help and counsel, but he does not say whether he got 
any of either. 

2 The same name as Beorhtric, only spelled in a way more like the 
modem way. 



2i6 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

on his own account, and began to plunder. Then, as the 
Chronicle says, ^' Brihtric took to him eighty ships, and thought 
that he should work for himself mickle words [gain much fame], 
for that he should get Wulfnoth quick or dead. But as they 
thitherward were, there came such a wind against them as no 
man ere minded, and all the ships it beat and thrashed and on 
land warped^ ; and came Wulfnoth soon and the ships burned. 
When this quoth [told] was to the other ships where the King 
was, how the other ships had fared, it was as if it all redeless- 
were ; and the King got him home and the Aldermen and the 
high Wise Men, and forlet [forsook] the ships thus lightly. 
And the folk that on the ships were brought the ships eft to 
London, and let all the people's trouble thus lightly come to 
naught ; and was the victory no better that all English kin had 
hoped for." 

Just after this wretched business another great Danish fleet 
came in August. This time King Swegen did not come himself, 
but the fleet came in two divisions, the first commanded by 
Earl Thurcytel or Thurkill, the second by his brothers Heming 
and Eglaf From this time till the end of ^thelred's reign we 
read of nothing but the ravages of the Danes. These lasted till 
1013, when Swegen came again himself It would be almost 
endless to tell you all their marches to and fro, all the parts of 
the country that they ravaged and all the towns that they 
burned ; but you should mark that they now get far away from 
the sea, burning Oxford and Northampton and other quite 
inland places. I will only pick out a few of the more re- 
markable things which happened during these four dreadful 
years. 

As I said before, in this reign everything went wrong. If 
one man or a few men tried to do their duty, some one else 
was sure to stand in the way, till at last, as the Chronicle says, 
when the King and the Wise Men did settle something, '' it 
did not stand for one month ; and next was there no headman^ 

1 '*Awearp." Threw or cast. We now use this verb, which is the 
same as the High-Dutch wurfen, only in a rather different sense. But we 
talk of "the warp and the woof," and in some parts a mole is called a 
" mould7£;<2;^, " because he warps or throws up the mould. 

^ Without rede or counsel, as ^thelred is called the \}viready. 

^ Heafodman^ headman, captain, like the High-Dutch Hauptmann. 



THE REIGN OE ^THELRED. 217 

that troops would gather ; and ilk man fled as he most might ; 
and the next thing was that no shire another would help." 
Thus, in 1009, when ^thelred did get 'together an army and 
seemed really disposed to fight, Eadric betrayed them. The 
next year, when the Danes came into East-Anglia, the brave 
Alderman Ulfcytel met them again, but only the Cambridgeshire 
men would fight ; the others ran away, one Thurcytel setting 
the example. Thurcytel was doubtless a Dane by descent ; 
but so was Ulfcytel, and yet he did his duty. So the Danes 
were let into the heart of England and burned Northampton. 
Next year, 10 11, the King and his Wise Men asked for peace, 
and offered money and food, if the Danes would leave off 
plundering. Now let us hear the Chronicle. 

*' All this ill luck fell on us through unrede^ [lack of counsel], 
that man would not bid [offer] them gafol [tribute] in time ; 
and when they most evil had done, then made man g7'ith and 
frith [truce and peace] with them, and nathless for all this grith 
and frith and gafol, they fared everywhere by flocks, and harried, 
and our poor folk robbed and slew." 

This year, loii, the Danes took Canterbury, which was be- 
trayed to them by ^Ifmar the Archdeacon, whose life had once 
been saved by Archbishop ^Ifheah. The Danes are said to 
have committed every sort of cruelty \ it is said indeed that they 
regularly massacred nine people out of ten in the city. The 
Chronicle, however, does not speak so much of killing people 
as of taking them away prisoners, no doubt to sell them as 
slaves. That they plundered the city and burned the Minster 
I need hardly say. But what has made this taking of Canter- 
bury most famous is the martyrdom of Archbishop ^Ifheah, 
or Saint Alphege. This the Chronicle describes at length. 
We have also two other accounts which go more into detail. 
One is a life of Saint Alphege, by one Osbern, who lived 
about sixty years after, and who also wrote a life of Arch- 
bishop Dunstan. Osbern, like most writers of the lives of 
saints, is fond of marvels and of talking in a grand kind of 
way, and he says some things which are clearly not true. For 
instance, he makes Eadric join the Danes and help to take 

^ This is no doubt said with a play on yEthelred's name and nickname : 
the noble counsellor had no counsel. 



2i8 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

Canterbury, because one of his brothers had been killed b} 
the thanes of Kent. But it is wordi noticing that a great part 
of Osbern's account appears also in Florence ; either Florence 
copied so much of Osbern as he thought agreed with the 
Chronicle, or else both Florence and Osbern copied from 
somebody else. The other account is in the history of Thiet- 
mar Bishop of Merseburg, a German historian who lived at the 
time, and who says that he heard the story from a man who 
had just come from England. This then is better authority 
than Osbern, indeed almost as good as the Chronicle itself. 
And Thietmar's account, without contradicting the Chronicle, 
helps to make the whole story more intelligible. Thietmar 
however makes one very strange mistake, for he calls the Arch- 
bishop Dunstan instead of ^Ifheah. No doubt the name of 
Dunstan was famous all over Christendom, while people in 
Germany had probably never heard of yF^lfheah till they heard 
of his murder. So, if the man who told Thietmar only talked 
of the Archbishop of Canterbury without mentioning his name, 
Thietmar might write down the name of the only Archbishop 
of Canterbury he had ever heard of. Still it is strange that, 
if Thietmar knew anything of Dunstan at all, he did not know 
that he had been dead more than twenty years. I tell you all 
this, because it is well that you should know how much and 
how little people in other countries knew of what was going 
on in England. But I think I cannot do better than give you 
the account as it is in the Chronicle. 

" They went to their ships and led the Archbishop with them. 

Was there a captive ^ . _ Where man ere 

He that ere was Saw bhss, 

Angle-kin's head In that wretched borough 

And Christendom's. Whence to us came erst 

Then man might there Christendom and bhss 

See wretchedness Fore God and fore world. 

And they had the Archbishop with them so long as to that time 
that they him martyred. 

"MXII. On this year came Eadric Alderman and all the 

^ Rcepling, one robbed or taken away. 



THE REIGN OF ^THELRED, 219 

oldest ^ Wise Men, ordered and lewd ^ [priests and laymen], of 
the English kin to London-borough, before Easter. Easter day 
was that year on the Ides of April [April 13th] ; and they there 
were so long as till all the gafol was paid ; that was eight thou- 
sand pounds. Then on the Saturday was the host much stirred 
against the Bishop, for that he would not to them fee [money] 
promise, and forbad that man nothing [anything] for him should 
sell [pay]. Were they eke very drunken, for that there was wine 
brought from south. They took then the Bishop and led him 
to their busting,^ on the Sun-eve,^ the octave of Passover, and 
him there then pelted with bones and neats' heads, and slew him 
then one of them with an axe iron on the head, that he with 
the dint nether [down] sank, and his holy blood on the earth 
fell, and his holy soul he to God's kingdom sent. And they 
the dead body ^ in the morn carried to London ; and the 
Bishops Eadnoth and ^Ifhun and the borough-folk him took 
with all worship, and him buried in Saint Paul's minster, and 
there God now shows forth the holy mart^T's might." 

Thus it stands in the Chronicle; the account there must 
have been written within eleven years, for in 1023 ^Ifheah's 
body was translated^ that is solemnly moved, from London to 
Canterbury. Florence says that on Saturday the 19th the 
Danes told ^Ifheah that he must pay three thousand pounds 
for his life and freedom ; if not, they should kill him the next 
Saturday. As he had forbidden that anything should be paid 
for him, they brought him forth and killed him as is said in the 
Chronicle. He adds that the Dane who at last killed him was 

^ Not necessarily the oldest in age, but the highest in rank ; the same sort 
of use as the word Alderman. 

^ This word is the same as the High-Dutch Imte, and simply means 
people, especially the laity as opposed to the clergy. Thence it comes to 
mean ignorant, and so bad in other ways, as we read in the Acts of the 
Apostles of " certain lewd fellows of the baser sort," as we should say 
blackguards or ruffians ; but here you see it is still quite an honourable word. 

^ The Danish place of assembly ; we still keep the word to mean the 
sort of raised platform on which the speakers stand at the election of 
members of Parliament. 

* The eve of Sunday, that is Saturday — Soitnabend as it is called in 
German ; before it is called Saternesdceg or ScEte^-dceg. 

^ Lichamoii, the same word that we have in //<:/zgate, the city of Lich- 
field, &c. ; the same as the High-Dutch Leich, 



220 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN, 

one Thrum, whom he had converted and baptized in his prison, 
and had confirmed only the day before. Thrum did it, they say, 
'* moved by an impious piety," i that is, he wished to put an end to 
^Ifheah's sufferings. Thietmar says that ^Ifheah had promised 
to pay the Danes money to let him go, and had fixed a time, 
but that when the time came, he said he had none to pay, and 
told them to do what they pleased with him. He also said 
that Thurkill the Danish Earl tried to save him,^ but that the 
other Danes would not hearken. Now this account perhaps takes 
away somewhat from the beauty of the story, but for that very 
reason it is more likely to be true ; it also explains why the 
Danes kept ^Ifheah so long, and why they were so very bitter 
against him. Again, Thietmar's story about Thurkill agrees 
with the account in the Chronicle, which seems to speak of a 
mere tumultuous attack of the soldiers rather than of a fixed 
meeting, such as it seems to be in Florence. It also agrees with 
ThurkilFs conduct afterwards. 

This is said to have happened at Greenwich where the church 
of Saint Alphege now stands. Of course the English looked 'on 
yElfheah as a martyr. In after-times, after the Norman Con- 
quest, Lanfranc the Italian Archbishop said that he was no 
martyr, because he had not died for the Christian faith ; but 
Saint Anselm, who was afterwards Archbishop, said that he was 
a true martyr, for that he died for righteousness and charity ; 
that is, that he chose to die rather than let his people be 
further oppressed to raise money to ransom him. 

Just after the death of ^If heah the money was paid to the 
Danes, and their fleet dispersed, save forty-five ships, which 
entered JEthelred's service with Thurkill at their head.^ The 
King was to feed and clothe them, and perhaps to give them 
lands in East-Anglia, as Alfred did to Guthorm. You see how 

1 Ox pity. *'Pietas" means either, and /?>/j/ and //'/)/ are the same word. 

*^ Thietmar makes Thurkill talk of ''the Lord's anointed" as if he had 
been a Christian. He certainly was a Christian afterwards, and we shall 
presently see that he very likely was one now. William of Malmesbury 
makes him the chief leader in the Archbishop's murder, which he cer- 
tainly was not. 

^ It is only William of Malmesbury who distinctly mentions Thurkill, 
but we find him directly afterwards in zEthelred's service ; so it was no 
doubt now that he entered it. 



THE REIGX OF .ETHELRED. 221 

this conduct of Thurkill quite agrees A\ath what Thietmar says 
about his trying to save the Archbishop's Hfe. ^Ethelred seems 
to have used this moment of rest to punish the Welsh, who, we 
may suppose, had not been very regular in paying their tribute. 
For we read in the Welsh Chronicle that in i o 1 2 the Saxons, 
under " Edris," which must mean Eadric, harried St. David's. 
This, you will see, is just of a piece with ^thelred's former 
conduct towards Cumberland and Normandy. He was idle 
when he should have acted vigorously, and active when he had 
better have kept quiet. 

For it was a very short mom^ent of peace that England now 
had. In 10 13 Swegen came again. One can hardly believe 
Williamof Malmesbury, when he says that Thurkill invited him, 
as Thurkill seems to have been, now at least, quite faithful to 
^thelred. One waiter at the time^ indeed says that one object 
of Swegen in coming was to punish the treason of Thurkill. 
However this may be, it is plain that Swegen had now fully 
made up his mand to conquer all England. Instead of merely 
plundering the South of England, he now set steadily to work, 
first to secure the part of England which was largely inhabited 
by Danes, and then to conquer the purely English part by 
their help. This, you will see, is something quite different 
from any of the earlier invasions, and it shows a distinct and 
settled policy unlike anything that we have seen before. So 
when, in August this year, he came to Sandwich, he stayed there 
only a few days, and then sailed round the coast of East-Anglia 
to the mouth of the Humber, and then up the Trent as far as 
Gainsborough. Here all the people of the North-East of 
England, all the Danish part, submitted to him ; first the men 
of Lindesey, and then Uhtred the Earl of the Northumbrians. 
You will remember Uhtred, who delivered Durham in 1006. 
Some time before King ^thelred had given him his daughter 
^-Elfgifu in marriage ; he had seemingly got rid of his second 
wife as easily as he did of his first. Next came the men 
of the Five Boroughs. You remember them, Leicester, 
Lincoln, Nottingham, Stamford, and Derby, and how King 

1 The author of the Encomium Einmce. He was a foreigner, and writes 
wholly in the interest of Cnut and Emma, and there are many strange 
mistakes in his accounts of English affairs. 



222 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

Edmund recovered them from the Danes in 941. They are 
still spoken of as if they formed a sort of Confederacy, and no 
doubt their people were mainly of Danish blood. In a little 
time all the people beyond Watling Street submitted, so that 
Swegen had now won without a blow all the country which 
had been given up to the Danes in Alfred's time, and all the 
work of King Edward and the other Kings after him was 
undone. And now it was just forty years since Edgar, King 
of the English and Lord of all Britain, had been rowed on the 
Dee by his vassal Kings. Such a difference there was between 
the father and the son, and between a counsellor like Dunstan 
and a counsellor like Eadric. But it was not enough for Swe- 
gen to have the Danish country ; he would have all England, 
So he made all the men of the North swear to him and give 
hostages and also horses and food to his army. Then he gave 
the hostages and the fleet to his son Cnut^ — the Great Cnut, 
of whom we now hear for the first time — and went on himself 
over Watling Street, right through Mercia, through a country 
which had seen hardly any fighting for a hundred years and 
more. There he ravaged and burned and massacred more 
cruelly than he or any of them had ever done before. He 
took Oxford again, which had been burned only three years 
before ; then he went to Winchester, where the citizens made 
peace and gave hostages. Thence he went to London, where 
King ^Ethelred was, and, what was better than King ^^thelred, 
the brave Dane Thurkill. So the citizens stood a siege and 
fought manfully, and drove Swegen away. You see through 
the whole story that the Enghsh wanted nothing but good 
leaders. But it was only for a little time that the Londoners 
could hold out. For Swegen went away to Wallingford and 
1 Cnut or Knud is his real name, in Latin Cimto. He is often called 
Canutits or Canute^ because when a later Danish King of the name was to 
be made a Saint, Pope Paschal the Second could not say Cnut^ and so 
called him " Sanctus Canuticsy The change was likened to the change 
of Abram into Abraham. It is better to call him by his own name, only 
sound the c as you would in German, and make the u long. If you use 
the other form, at least say Canute and not Cd?tute. But I suspect that very 
few people know that Cnut's real Christian name was La?nbert. He was 
baptized either by Archbishop Unwan of Bremen or by ^thelnoth, who was 
afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. But we do not call him Lambert or 
his father Otto, any more than we call Rolf Robert. See p. 141. 



THE REIGN OF .ETHELRED. 223 

thence to Bath, harrying the land as he went. And at Bath 
.'Ethelmser the Alderman of the Defnsaetas and all the thanes 
of the West came to him and submitted and gave hostages. 
Thus Swegen had got the whole land except London, and men 
now counted him for full King over all England : but he could 
hardly have been hallowed as King by any Bishop. So Flo- 
rence says that he was not King but only Tyrant, and goes on 
speaking of him as the Tyrant. So when the men of London 
saw that Swegen had won all England save their own city, they 
thought it was no use holding out any longer, and they too 
submitted and gave hostages. So King JEthelred and Thurkill 
left London and went to Thurkill's fleet, the forty-five ships 
which were lying at Greenwich. But ^^Ethelred sent the Lady 
Emma and their two sons, the ^thelings Edward and Alfred 
(of both of whom you will hear again), to Duke Richard in 
Normandy. And presently, after Christmas, he himself went 
across to Duke Richard. But Thurkill stayed with the fleet, 
and both he and Swegen laid on taxes to keep their fleets and 
plundered the people and did much evil. 

Thus you see that Swegen was the first Dane who was 
King, or, as Florence calls him. Tyrant, over all England. 
But he did not long enjoy the greatness which he had won by 
so much cruelty. For about Candlemas next year, 1014, he 
died. Florence here, for once, tells a tale which I will tell you. 



%\z Storg of i\t B^atlj of Sincgcn the iCgrairt. 

Now when Swegen had conquered all England and had driven 
King ^thelred out of the land, he kept his court at Gains- 
borough. Now in times past, in the days of Alfred the Great 
King of the West-Saxons, there was an Under-king of the East- 
Angles, whose name was Edmund. He was a good man and 
an holy, and the Danes who came into his land slew him, for 
that he would not forsa.ke the faith of Christ. Wlierefore men 
called him Edmund the saint and martyr, and a goodly 
minster was builded over his grave, and men called the minster 
and the town after his name, Saint Edmund's Bury. Now when 



224 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

Swegen the Tyrant was in this land, he greatly hated Saint Ed- 
mund and his rainster and his priests and all that belonged to 
him, for that Saint Edmund had been slain by men of his own 
people in past time. And he said that Saint Edmund was no 
saint/ and mocked greatly at him. So Swegen the Tyrant sent 
to the priests of Saint Edmund's Bury, saying : ^' Give me a great 
sum of money ; and if ye give it me not, I will come and burn 
your town and all the folk that are in it ; and I will pull down 
your minster to the ground, and you that be priests and clerks 
I will put to death with all manner of tortures." And Swegen 
the Tyrant gathered together his Wise Men and his captains 
and all his host, and spake unto them in the like manner. And 
he sat on a goodly horse at the head of his host. And while 
he was yet speaking, he saw one coming towards him like an 
armed man with a spear in his hand ; but no man saw him save 
only Swegen the Tyrant. And Swegen cried, " Help, help, my 
soldiers, for lo, the holy King Edmund cometh against me to 
slay me." So Saint Edmund smote Swegen the Tyrant with 
his spear, so that he fell from his horse, and died that night in 
great pain and anguish. Thus did Saint Edmund avenge his 
minster. 



There is most likely so much truth in this story as this, that 
Swegen had done, or threatened to do, some mischief to the 
minster at Bury, and that, when he died soon after, men said 
it was God's judgement for the wrong done to Saint Edmund. 
Then it would be easy to say, in a kind of figure, that Saint 
Edmund killed him, and so the story would grow up. It is 
known to Danish as well as to EngUsh writers. But I will 
come back to our history. 

When Swegen was dead, the Danes of his fleet chose his son 
Cnut to be King. But the Wise Men of England came together 
and sent over to ^thelred in Normandy, and said that no lord 
was dearer to them than their lord by birth, if he would only 
govern them better than he did before. So ^thelred first sent 

1 The sort of half belief attributed to Swegen in this story fits in very 
well with the position of one who had been a Christian, but who had gone 
back to idol-worship. 



THE REIGN OE ^THELRED, 225 

over his son Edward with messengers, and greeted all his people, 
and said that he would be good lord to them, and would make 
better all the things that they eschewed, and w^ould forgive all 
things that had been said or done, if they would all receive him 
wdth one accord and without treachery. So the Wise Men 
plighted full friendship to him and declared every Danish King 
an outlaw in England for ever. So in Lent in the year 1014 
King ^thelred came over to England and all men received 
him gladly. But I do not see that he reigned any better 
than he did before \ only now his brave son Edmund, whom, 
because of his strength and daring, men called Ironside, w^as 
able to lead the people and fight against the Danes. For 
remember that Cnut was still in the land of Lindesey, and he 
agreed with the men of the land that they should give him 
horses and join him in harrying the rest of England. But King 
^thelred got an army together, and came on them before they 
were ready ; so Cnut was driven out and took to his ships. He 
then went to Sandw^ich, and cut off the ears, noses, and hands of 
the English hostages who had been given to his father. He then 
went back to Denmark, and the land w^as free from the Danes 
for a little time. But King ^Ethelred caused 21,000 or, as some 
say, 30,000 pounds to be paid to his own Danish fleet at Green- 
wich, and this seems to have been thought almost as great a 
grievance as if Cnut and the other Danes had stayed in England. 
The next year, 1015, a great meeting of the Wise Men was 
held at Oxford. To that meeting came Sigeferth and Morkere, 
two brothers, who were the chief men among the Five-Burghers, 
and Eadric persuaded them to come to his own house, and 
there gave them wine to drink and had them murdered. But 
their followers took refuge in the tower of Saint Frideswide's 
minster, which is now Christ Church. So Eadric set fire to 
the minster and burned them there. It does not seem clear 
whether King ^ their ed actually ordered these murders, but 
at any rate he did not punish Eadric, and, like Ahab, he 
took the spoil to himself. For he seized all the goods of the 
two thanes and sent Sigeferth's widow Ealdgyth a prisoner to 
Malmesbury. But the ^theHng Edmund had seen her and 
washed to have her for his wife ; so he went to Malmesbury ancl 
married her against his father's will. The ^theling then w^ent 

Q 



226 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN, 

to the Five-Boroughs and took possession of Sigeferth and 
Morkere's property, and the people submitted to him. Ed- 
mund had thus got a kind of principaUty of his own in the 
North, which helped him for some while. 

But this year Cnut came again with a great fleet. Some 
say^ that Thurkill had gone over to his side, and had sailed 
to Denmark, and prayed him to come ; but this is not in the 
Chronicle. Anyhow Cnut came to Sandwich ; perhaps he had 
a battle there with the English fleet ; he then went and 
plundered in Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, and Somersetshire, while 
King JEthelred lay sick at Cor sham in Wiltshire. And now 
Eadric filled up the measure of his wickedness. The ^theling 
gathered an army in the north and Eadric gathered one in the 
south, and when the two came together, Eadric tried to kill the 
-^theling by guile, so that nothing was done. Then Eadric 
went over to Cnut with forty ships, no doubt the Danish ships 
in ^thelred's service. The West-Saxons then submitted to 
Cnut and gave him hostages. Things were thus for a little 
Svhile turned about, Cnut the Dane having got possession of 
the purely Saxon country, while Edmund was still strong in 
that part of Mercia where the people were chiefly Danish. 

So in the next year, 1016, Cnut set forth out of Wessex, with 
the Danes and West-Saxons, and crossed the Thames at Crick- 
lade, and harried the land of the Hwiccas. So the ^theling 
came against him with an army from the north ; but his men 
said they would not fight unless King ^thelred and the 
Londoners were there ; so Edmund sent and prayed his father 
and the Londoners to join him ; and so they did, but when they 
came together, the King was told that there were traitors in the 
camp, so he went away to London, and the army dispersed. 
But the JEtheling rode to Northumberland to his brother-in-law 
Earl Uhtred, for Uhtred was strong on his side, and when Cnut 
^ent asking him to join him, he said he would do no such 
thing, but would ever be faithful to his lord King JEthelred 
So Edmund and Uhtred joined their forces, and between them 
the whole land was harried, Edmund and Uhtred harrying on 
one side and Cnut and Eadric harrying on the other. But Cnut 
marched straight through Mercia and came to York while 
^ It is so in the Encomium E7n?nce, 



THE REIGN OF EDMUND IRONSIDE, 227 

Uhtred and Edmund were away. So when they heard this, 
Edmund went to his father in London, and Uhtred went to 
York and submitted to Cnut. Cnut most hkely looked on him 
as a traitor, because he had submitted to Swegen and had after- 
wards joined Edmund. So when Uhtred's enemy Thurbrand 
begged Cnut that he would let him have Untred killed, 
Cnut gave him leave. So Uhtred was summoned to Cnut's 
court at Wihael, but when he came, armed men were placed 
beyond a curtain, who burst out and killed Uhtred and forty of 
his men. The Chronicle says that Cnut made Eric the Dane 
Earl of the Northumbrians, but Simeon says that Eadwulf the 
brother of Uhtred succeeded him in his Earldom.^ I suppose 
that Cnut made Eric Earl of the whole Kingdom of Northumber- 
land, and that Eadwulf was Earl of Bernicia under him, Cnut 
then went to his ships, and after Easter he made ready to sail 
against London. But before he came King ^thelred died on 
Saint George's day, and was buried in Saint Paul's minster in 
London. After all that had happened, he was only forty-eight 
years old. 

§ 2. The Reign of King Edmund Ironside. 
April 23 — November 30, 1016. 

When King ^thelred died, there was what might be called 
a double election of a King. Many of the chief men, Alder- 
men, Bishops, and others, thought that it was no use trying to 
resist the Danes any longer, and that the best thing was to choose 
Cnut King of the English. So they met and chose Cnut King, 
and they went to Southampton, where he then was, and swore 
oaths to Cnut, and said that they forsook the whole house of 
^thelred for ever. Then Cnut swore oaths back again to them 
that he would be a faithful lord to them both in the things of God 
and in the things of the world. ^ Cnut therefore was already a 

^ Simeon says Eadwulf was a weak and timid man, and that for fear of 
the venj^eance of tlie Scots he gave up Lothian to them. l{ it be true that 
King Edgar granted Lothian to Kenneth, perhaps Uhtred had got it back 
again after his defeat of the Scots at Durham. 

2 This account of Cnut's election is not in the Chronicle, but as it is in 
Florence, I do not doubt about accepting it, the more so as the Chronicle 
itself mentions only the Wise Men that were in London and the citizens of 
London as joining in Edmund's election. 

Q 2 



228 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN, 

Christian. But the citizens of London and such of the Wise Men 
as were in London had nothing to do with this election of Cnut. 
They at once chose Edmund in the place of his father, and he was 
crowned in Saint Paul's minster by Archbishop Lyfing ; so there 
were two Kings in the land. Edmund was a valiant w^arrior, 
and very likely, if he had come sooner, he might have done as 
much as any of the great Kings, Alfred or Edward or ^thelstan, 
and might have delivered the land altogether from the Danes. 
It seems to have been nothing but treason and mismanagement 
which caused England to be so badly defended, for whenever 
there was a pitched battle, the English always fought well j only 
some traitor almost always either hindered a battle from being 
fought or else drew off his troops during the fighting. Now that 
the EngHsh had got this brave King Edmund at their head, they 
did what they could. We hear no more of any shrinking or run- 
ning away or paying money. For the few months that Edmund 
was King we hear of nothing but hard fighting, in which the 
English commonly get the upper hand. Still it perhaps was 
too late anyhow really to win, and King Edmund did not live 
long enough to finish his work. In times like those which 
we are reading about, almost everything depended on the 
goodness or badness of this or that man. A man like Alfred 
can save a kingdom, and a man like ^thelred can let a 
kingdom go to ruin. In settled times like ours, no one man 
can do either so much good or so much harm. 

You will remember that Cnut was now in possession of Wes- 
sex, while Edmund held the city of London, whose importance 
is now always coming out more and more strongly. Cnut's 
great object was to take London, and Edmund's great object 
was to get back Wessex, where you may suppose that the people 
had submitted to Cnut only for fear. In Northumberland and 
East-Anglia we can well believe that many people, being of 
Danish descent, really wished to have a Danish King, but we 
may be sure that none of the Saxons in Wessex, or even of the 
Angles in Mercia, wished for any such thing. So first of all 
Edmund got stealthily out of London and went into Wessex to 
gather troops. Meanwhile Cnut's fleet came against London, 
and they besieged the town and made a ditch round it, and 
there was much fighting, till at last the Danes broke up the 



THE REIGN OF EDMUND IRONSIDE: 229 

siege, and went away into Wessex after Edmund, leaving only a 
part of the army to guard the ships. So Edmund and Cnut met 
and fought a battle at Pen Selwood on the borders of Somerset- 
shire, Wiltshire, and Dorsetshire, where the English had the 
victory. Then after midsummer Edmund got a greater army, 
and fought another battle at Sherstone in Wiltshire, on the 
borders of the land of the Hwiccas. King Edmund had with 
him the men of Dorsetshire and . Devonshire and part of 
Wiltshire, besides whatever troops he had brought Avith him 
from London. King Cnut had his Danes; and three English 
Aldermen, Eadric and ^Ifgar and JElfmaer called Darling, had 
brought to him the men of Hampshire and part of Wiltshire. 
This was a very great battle and lasted two days. On Monday 
both armies fought all day without either getting the better, and 
in the evening they parted for sheer weariness. On Tuesday 
they began again, and the English had the better, and the 
Danish account says that King Edmund himself got so near to 
King Cnut that he cut through his shield. The Danes how- 
ever pressed round their King and saved him, but they were 
beginning to yield, when Eadric cut off the head of one 
Osma^r, who was very like King Edmund, and held it up 
saying, "Flee, English; flee, English; dead is Edmund." So 
the English fell back a little, but when they knew that King 
Edmund was not dead, they turned again, and the two armies 
again fought all day without either side gaining the victory. 
Then King Cnut broke up secretly in the night and marched 
off to London and began the siege again. Then Alderman 
Eadric, seeing how strong King Edmund was, changed sides 
yet again, and went over to King Edmund and swore oaths, and 
King Edmund was foolish enough to trust him. Then King 
Edmund marched to London and delivered the city and drove 
the Danes to their ships. Two days afterwards he crossed the 
Thames at Brentford, and fought a third battle and defeated 
the Danes again. But many of the English were too eager 
after booty and were drowned in the river. Then King Edmund 
marched again into Wessex to gather more troops, and the 
Danes again besieged London, but they could not take it. 
Then the Danish fleet sailed up the Thames and harried 
Mercia, while the land army went and harried Kent. So King 



230 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN, 

Edmund marched back from AVessex with his new troops, and 
came into Kent, and fought a fourth battle with the Danes at 
Otford, and beat them again so that they fled to the Isle of 
Sheppey, and all men said that he would have destroyed them 
utterly, had not Eadric beguiled him to stop the pursuit at 
Aylesford. So King Edmund went back into Wessex and 
Mercia, and King Cnut crossed into Essex and thence into 
Mercia, harrying everywhere that he went. And when the 
Danes had got much plunder, they began to go back to their 
ships. But King Edmund followed them with an army 
gathered from all England, and fought the fifth battle at 
Assandun^ in Essex by the river Crouch. This w^as again a 
very fierce battle. King Edmund drew up his men in three 
divisions, and he stood between his great Standard and the 
other ensign, which was the Dragon of the West-Saxons,^ and 
he bade his men fight bravely. And the Danes set up their 
standard the Raven, and Thurkill, who was now on Cnut's side, 
said that the Raven moved its wings, and that the Danes 
would have the victory.^ So King Edmund and King Cnut 
both led on their armies, and both fought very valiantly, and 
the Danes began to give way. Then wrought Eadric a worse 
treason than he had yet wrought, for he had promised King 
Cnut that he would betray his lord King Edmund and his 
army. Now Eadric commanded the Magesaetas, the men of 
Herefordshire ; and when he saw the Danes giving way, he 
drew off his troops. So had Cnut the victory, though all 
the folk of England fought against him. There died many 
and good men, ^Ifric the Alderman, and Godwine the Alder- 
man of Lindesey, and Ulfcytel the brave Alderman of the 

^ That is Ass-down^ Mons Asini as Florence has it. Assan is the genitive 
of ass<2, a he-ass, but the name of the place has got corrupted into As- 
singto7i, or Ashington, as if it were the town of the Assmgas or yEscingas. 
So Hunt<2;?dun, Abb<272dun, Eth«;/dun (the place of Alfred's battle), have 
been corrupted into Hunt/;/^don, Ab/;^^don, Ed/;/^on. 

2 Henry of Huntingdon gives a full account of this, which must be taken 
from a ballad. 

^ I get this from the Encomium Efumce^ though both this writer and 
Henry of Huntingdon have confused this battle with the battle of Sher- 
stone. But it is worth noting that the. superstition about the Raven, which 
we saw in the time of Alfred, lasted still. 



THE REIGN OF EDMUND IRONSIDE, 231 

East- Angles, of whom we have heard before, and ^thelweard 
the son of JEthehvine Alderman of the East-Angles, whom 
men called the Friend of God. And there too were slain 
Eadnoth the Bishop of Dorchester and Wulfsige the iVbbot 
of Ramsey, who had come to pray for King Edmund and 
his host. Well-nigh all the Aldermen and great men of Eng- 
land were slain ; yet did not King Edmund's heart fail him, 
but he got together another army, and marched into the land 
of the Hwiccas, and Cnut marched after him, and they both 
made ready to fight a sixth battle. But Eadric and certain 
other of the Wise Men persuaded King Edmund that he should 
not fight another battle, but that he and Cnut should divide the 
land. To this King Edmund at last agreed, though it was 
much against his will. So the two Kings met near Deerhurst, 
in an island of the Severn called Olney, and there they made 
a peace and gave hostages, and they swore to be brothers to 
each other, and they divided the Kingdom. King Edmund 
was to be the head King, and to have Wessex, Essex, and 
East-Anglia, with the city of London, and Cnut was to have 
Northumberland and Mercia. This, you will see, was not the 
same division which was made between Alfred and Guthorm ; 
for Edmund gave up to Cnut all the English part of Mercia 
which Alfred had kept, while he kept East-Anglia and Essex 
which Alfred had given to Guthorm. So Edmund and Cnut 
exchanged arms and clothes in token of friendship, and agreed 
about the money to be paid to the fleet. But the Danes went 
away with their plunder, and the men of London made peace 
with them and with Earl Eric who was their chief, and let 
them winter in the city. 

This is the story as I find it in the Chronicle and in Florence ; 
but there is another story, which there is no good authority for, 
but which has grown up into a famous legend. The tale runs 
that, just as the two armies were ready to fight the sixth battle 
in Gloucestershire, Edmund proposed to Cnut that, instead of 
their armies fighting a battle, they two should fight in single 
combat, and so settle who should be King. According to 
William of Malmesbury, Cnut refused the combat, because he 
was a small man, while Edmund was very tall and strong, so 
that it would not be a fair battle ; but he said that, as each of 



232 OLD ENGLISH HIS TOR Y FOR CHILDREN. 

them had a good claim to a Kingdom which had been held by 
his father, the fairest thing would be to divide it. Others 
say that the two Kings were just going to fight, or had actually 
begun fighting, when Cnut proposed to divide the Kingdom 
instead. 

This way of settling differences by single combat was very 
common in the North, and about this time most nations in 
Europe began to adopt it as a way of settling difficult causes, 
for they thought that God would always give the victory to the 
right side. In deciding quarrels between whole nations, we 
often hear of it in an early state of things, but not as men get 
more settled and politic. For the meaning of a war is that that 
one of the powers at war which is really the stronger will get 
what it wants from the other. Now the loss of a battle may 
really compel the weaker people to give in, but the mere loss of 
one champion in no way compels them to give in, though they 
may be bound to do so by agreement. So in stories of single 
combat, as in that of David and Goliath, we often find that the 
two armies did fight after all. You will see presently that 
when William Duke of the Normans challenged our King 
Harold to settle their claims to the crown by single combat, 
King Harold refused, and very rightly; for if William had 
killed Harold in single combat, it would not have given 
William any better right to the crown of England ; and if 
Harold had killed William, it was not likely that the Nor- 
man army would go home quietly. But as for the division 
of the Kingdom, it was perhaps as wise a thing as could be 
done. You will remember that England had been one King- 
dom for so short a time that the notion of dividing it did 
not seem so strange and shocking as it would now. 

We will hope that Cnut was really honest in this treaty, and 
that he did not merely mean it as a trick to deceive Edmund. 
Anyhow, on Saint Andrew's day in the same year King Edmund 
Ironside died, and men commonly thought that Eadric had con- 
trived to kill him. He had reigned only seven months, and he 
had in that time fought five great battles ; he was victorious in 
three and he was not fairly beaten in any. All this shows how 
completely it was the fault of ^thelred and Eadric that Eng- 
land was conquered at all. The strange thing is that not only 



THE REIGN OF CNUT. 233 

^thelred, but Edmund too, should have trusted Eadric after 
he had committed so many treasons. King Edmund, hke so 
many of his family, must have been quite young when he died. 
You will remember that the year before he had married Ealdgyth 
the widow of Sigeferth. He left two little sons, Edmund and 
Edward, who, one w^ould think, must have been twins. Of his 
brothers three at least were living, Eadwig son of ^thelred by 
his first wife, and Alfred and Edward, the sons of Emma of 
Normandy, -^thelstan, the eldest son of ^thelred, w^as most 
likely killed during the war. 

King Edmund was buried by his grandfather Edgar in the 
Minster at Glastonbury. 



I have now ended the Danish wars, which I have told at 
some length. I do not expect you to remember all the names 
of persons and places ; indeed I cannot myself remember all 
of them without the book ; but I am sure that you will better 
understand what a long and fearful struggle it was, and how 
great a difference there was between ^thelred and Edmund 
or between Eadric and Ulfcytel, if you try to follow the cam- 
paigns on the map, and try to understand the deeds and 
characters of some of the chief actors. I dare say you will 
forget many of the names and dates, but I think you will carry 
off a fuller and clearer notion of the whole story than if I had 
told it you in a short and dry way. At any rate I have now 
done with the Danish wars, and we shall hardly have any 
fighting in England itself for fifty years, and then will come a 
still more famous fight than any of those between Cnut and 
Edmund. 

§ 3. The Reign of King Cnut. 
1016 — 1035. 

When Edmund was dead, no one seems to have said any- 
thing against Cnut's taking the whole Kingdom. You know 
by this time that it was not likely that any one should set up 
either of Edmund's little sons to be King; had things been 



234 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHLLDREN, 

quiet, the Wise Men would most likely have chosen Eadwig, 
Edmund's brother, who was much beloved by the people. ^ 
But I suppose that by this time everybody was quite tired of 
fighting, and that, as Cnut had already got half the Kingdom, 
it was thought better to let him have the other half too than to 
run the chance of any more wars between the two parties. So 
Cnut the Dane, the son of Swegen, was chosen Kmg over all 
England and was crowned in Saint Paul's by Archbishop Lyfing. 
It is said that Cnut called together all the Wise Men at London, 
and asked those who had been witnesses of the treaty between 
him and Edmund, whether anything had then been settled 
about Edmund's sons or brothers, and whether they ought to 
reign in Wessex if Cnut were alive ? Then the Wise Men of 
the West-Saxons answered that nothing had ever been said 
about Edmund's brothers, and that Edmund had not left them 
any part of his Kingdom; and that as for his little sons, he 
begged that Cnut would be their guardian and take care of 
them till they were old enough to reign. But we are told 
that in all this the Wise Men of the West-Saxons lied for 
fear of Cnut, and it is plain that, if Edmund was murdered 
by Eadric, he could hardly have had time to make a will or 
settle anything. So they all swore oaths to Cnut, and the chief 
men of the Danes swore oaths to them, and they all said that 
none of Edmund's sons or brothers should be King, and they 
said that it would be wise to have the ^theling Eadwig out- 
lawed. But Cnut thought that, if it was wise to have him 
outlawed, it would be safer to have him killed. So he called 
Eadric the traitor into a room by himself, and bade him 
beguile Eadwig that he might die. But Eadric said, *' There 
is one ^thelweard, a chief man among the English, who can 
beguile Eadwig better than I.^ Call him to thee, and promise 
him gifts and honours that he may slay Eadwig." So Cnut 
called ^thelweard and said, *^ Thus and thus spake Eadric the 
Earl to me, saying that thou canst beguile Eadwig the ^theling 
that he may die. Now then do as I bid thee, and thou shalt 

1 **Edwius, egi^egius et reverendissimus Regis Eadmundi germanus." — 
Flor. Wig. 

2 Eadric most likely meant that Eadwig would not trust or listen to him, 
while he would trust ^Ethelweard. 



THE REIGN OF CNUT. 235 

enjoy all the honours of thy fathers. Bring me the head of 
Eadwig, and thou shalt be unto me dearer than a brother." 
So ^thelvveard promised to slay Eadwig; yet he meant not 
to do the deed, and he did it not. For he promised only 
from fear of Cnut ; for he was of the noblest stock among the 
English. 

I hardly know what to make of this story. It is in Florence, 
but it is not in the Chronicles, and it is hard to make it agree 
with what follows. For in the course of the year 10 17 it is 
certain that Eadwig the ^theling was outlawed, and with him 
another Eadwig w^as outlawed, of whom we have no account 
save that he was called ^' King of the Churls," so that we 
may suppose that he too was much beloved by the common 
people. This we get in the Chronicles, but Florence goes 
on to say that Eadwig the King of the Churls made his peace 
v/ith the King, but that Eadwig the JEtheling was soon after 
murdered by some men who he thought w^ere his best friends. 
Now the story which I just told you reads very much as if it 
were the same story over again. Anyhow there is no doubt 
that Cnut tried to get all the members of the old royal family 
out of the way. The two young sons of ^thelred and Emma, 
Edw^ard and iVlfred, were safe with their mother in Normandy. 
But the two little children whom Edmund had left, Edward 
and Edmund, were sent by Cnut to his half-brother Olaf or 
James, King of the Sw^edes, w^ho was the first Christian King 
who reigned in Sweden. Cnut, it is said, wanted to have them 
killed in Sweden, as he did not like the shame of having them 
killed in England. But Olaf would not kill them, though he 
was too much afraid of Cnut to keep them in Sweden. So he 
sent them over into Flungary, where they were well taken care 
of For the King of the Hungarians then w^as Stephen, the first 
Christian King in Hungar}^, who is called Saint Stephen, and 
who has been much reverenced ever since. You may perhaps 
remember that, when the present King of Hungary was 
crowned, he was crowned with the Crown of Saint Stephen. 
King Stephen took good care of the Httle ^thelings. Ed- 
mund died young; but Edward lived, and Stephen's Queen 
Gisela, who was a sister of the Emperor Henry the Second, 
the last of the Saxon Emperors, gave him her niece Agatha 



236 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN, 

in marriage. We shall hear of this Edward and his children 
again. 

This same year, 10 17, Cnut, now being King over all England, 
divided the land into four parts. He kept Wessex himself and 
set Earls over the three other parts, namely Eadric over Mercia, 
Thurkill over East-Anglia, and Eric, another Dane, who had 
married his sister, over Northumberland. But before the year 
was out, Eadric, who had betrayed so many people, was put to 
death, — ^' very rightly," says one copy of the Chronicles ; but 
as several other people of whom we do not know any harm 
were put to death too, perhaps it was not very lawfully. For 
though Eadric had many times deserved to die at the hands of 
^thelred and Edmund, it does not appear that he had at all 
sinned against Cnut. There are two stories about his death. 
The first is that, as soon as Edmund was dead, Eadric came 
to Cnut saying, " Hail, sole King of the land." And Cnut 
answered, "Wherefore callest thou me sole King, while Ed-' 
mund reigneth in the land of the West-Saxons?" And Eadric 
answered and said, '' Lo, Edmund thine enemy is dead, for 
I have caused him to be slain by craft." Then said King Cnut 
to him : '^ Then hast thou served me well, and for this deed 
will I set thy head above the heads of all the men of all 
England." So Cnut called for an executioner, and he caused the 
head of Eadric to be cut off, and they set it on a pole and put 
it on the highest gate of London. Thus was the head of Eadric 
the traitor set above the heads of all the men of all England. 

Now this story cannot be true, because we know that Eadric 
was not killed till the year after Edmund's death. The other 
story may be true, because it does not contradict anything in 
the history. But it is the sort of story which one doubts about, 
because it reads, as many other stories do, like a piece of the Old 
Testament stuck in. This says that Cnut and Eadric had some 
quarrel,^ and that they disputed together. Then said Eadric, 
** Lo, I forsook Edmund my King and my brother for thy sake, 

1 William of Malmesbury says, honestly enough, that he does not know 
what the quarrel was about. But Roger of Wend over, a later writer, first 
tells us about the appointment of the different Earls and how Eadric was 
made Earl of the Mercians, and yet directly after he makes Eadric come to 
Cnut and complain of having the Earldom of the Mercians taken from 
him. He then goes on like William of Malmesbury. 



THE REIGN OF CNUT. 237 

and for thy sake I slew him ; and thus it is that thou rewardest 
me." Then was King Cnut very wroth, and his countenance 
was changed against Eadric, and he said, " Now shalt thou die, 
and rightly ; for thou art guilty of treason towards God and 
towards me, for thou hast slain thine own lord, and my brother 
who was bound to me by an oath. Thy blood be upon thine 
own head, for thine own mouth hath witnessed against thee 
that thou hast stretched forth thine hand against the Lord's 
anointed." Yet would not King Cnut slay him openly, for fear 
of the people, lest a tumult should be made. So he made 
them smother Eadric then and there in the chamber, and they 
threw his body through the window into the river of Thames. 

This last story, you will at once see, is taken from the ac- 
count in the Old Testament of the conduct of David to the 
Amalekite who killed Saul and to the men who killed Saul's 
son Ishbosheth. 

Now of all this the Chronicles only say, " And this year was 
Eadric Ealdorman slain," to which one copy, as I said, adds, " in 
London, very rightly." Florence says, ''And on the Nativity of 
the Lord, when he was in London, he bade the faithless Earl 
Eadric be slain in the palace, because he feared that he might 
some time be entrapped by him with snares, as his former lords 
-^thelred and Edmund had often been entrapped by him ; and 
he bade that his body should be thrown over the wall of the 
city and left unburied." Here we most likely have the true 
account, and from what Florence says about throwing his body 
over the wall we can understand how the two other stories 
arose about throwing his body through the window and setting 
his head on the gate of London. 

This same year, but seemingly before the death of Eadric, 
namely in July, Cnut sent over to Normandy and brought 
thence the Lady Emma or ^Ifgifu and married her. This is 
one of the strangest marriages that one ever heard of. Cnut 
v/as quite a young man, only about twenty-two, but Emma 
must have been much older, as it was now fifteen years since her 
former marriage with ^thelred. It is not certain whether he 
had ever seen her, and, if he merely wanted to connect himself 
with the Dukes of the Nonnans, Duke Richard had several 
daughters, and it would have been more natural to ask for one 



238 OLD ENGLISH HISTOR V FOR CHILDREN, 

of them than for their aunt. And on the other hand, it seems 
strange that Emma should wish to marry a man who had fought 
against and dethroned her former husband, and had driven her 
and her children out of the land. But she may have got used 
to England, and may have been well pleased to go back there 
again as Lady on any terms. Anyhow, as she w^as safe with 
her brother at Rouen, it is quite certain that she need not have 
married Cnut or gone back to England, if she had not wished 
it. It is said however that she made Cnut promise that the 
Crown of England should go to his children by her, which 
would cut off both her own children by ^thelred, and two 
sons of Cnut's, Swegen and Harold, who were born already. 
But of course no such agreement could be made without the 
consent of the Wise Men, and we shall find that, when Cnut 
died, he was not at once succeeded by Emma's son, but by one 
of those other sons. So Emma came over to England and mar- 
ried Cnut, and they had two children, Harthacnut and Gunhild. 
The next year, 1018, Cnut laid a very heavy tax on all 
England, and especially on London, to pay his Danish fleet, 
the greater part of which he then sent home. This is the last 
act of anything like oppression on Cnut's part. And this need 
not have really been oppression ; I mean that, though it must 
have been a very heavy burthen and hard for the English to 
pay, yet it may well have been the best thing to get rid of the 
Danes in this way, at whatever cost for the time. But from this 
time onward Cnut seems to have set himself steadily to work 
to mend his ways, and to rule his Kingdom of England well. 
If we compare him with the next Conqueror of England, we 
shall find that Cnut began a great deal worse than William, but 
ended a great deal better. Indeed no one could well have begun 
worse than Cnut, but from this time onwards we shall find him, 
as far as England is concerned, always getting better and better. 
I say, as far as England is concerned, because he was always 
waging wars, and some of them unjust wars, in the Ncr.h, and one 
or two great crimes are recorded of hiii), especially the murder 
of his brother-in-law, the Earl Ulf It seems that Ulf had 
rebelled or conspired against Cnut, but it also seems plain that 
Cnut had Ulf put to death without any form of law, alter he 
had been pardoned. A.nd though, besides England and Den- 



THE REIGN OF CNUT, 239 

mark, he won before his death all Norway and part of Sweden, 
Cnut seems to have been fonder of England than of any other 
part of his dominions, and to have spent most of his time there. 
He seems to have been loved by the Enghsh, and, as he went 
on, he trusted them more and more, and put Englishmen again 
in all high offices. Thus it is in his time that w^e first hear of 
the great Earls Godwine and Leofric, who were afterwards so 
famous. He made Leofric Earl of the Mercians, and Godwine, 
of whom I shall have a great deal more to tell you, was in 
1020 made Earl of the West-Saxons, for Cnut found that he 
was obliged to have an Earl under him even in Wessex itself. 
But no doubt a good many Danes settled in the land, and 
Cnut kept a body of soldiers about his person, called his 
Thingmen^ or House-carls^ who were originally Danes, though 
Englishmen and men of all nations were allowed to enlist in the 
force. As far as I can see, he wished to mix the two nations 
together as much as might be. And some say that the Danes 
complained of his promoting Englishmen in Denmark, which 
he certainly did in the matter of Bishopricks. In England he 
lived on the best terms with the clergy, especially with the good 
Archbishop ^thelnoth. Also he and Earl Thurkill built a 
minster at Assandun, where they won their great victory over 
Edmund, and gave it to a priest named Stigand to pray for the 
souls of the men who wxre killed there. Of this Stigand you 
will often hear again. He was very liberal to other churches, 
especially to Saint Edmund's Bury ; you will easily see why, if 
you remember the story of the death of his father. Hitherto 
there had been secular canons in the church of Saint Edmund, 
but now Cnut put in monks. And he also showed great respect 
to the church of Glastonbury, partly perhaps because Edmund, 
whom he called his brother, was buried there. He came to 
Glastonbury in 1032 with Archbishop ^thelnoth, who had 
once been a monk there, and he granted a charter to the Abbey, 
which was signed in the wooden church.^ This means the 
old church of all, the Welsh church, which stood where Saint 



^ There is some doubt' whether this charter is really genuine, but we may 
trust it for the bit about the wooden church, because that is just the sort 
of thing about which a forger would take care to be accurate. 



240 OLD ENGLISH HISTOR V FOR CHILDREN. 

Joseph's Chapel stands now. The great church built by Dun- 
stan was to the east of this, where the great Abbey church is 
still. But in process of time both churches were rebuilt as 
you see them now, and in the thirteenth century the two 
churches were enlarged so as to touch. And in 1023 Cnut 
had the body of Saint -^Ifheah moved, or, as it is called, 
translated^ from London to his own church at Canterbury. In 
all these things Cnut was clearly trying to atone for all the 
mischief that he and his countrymen had done in past times. 
And there is a famous story told of Cnut, which I dare say 
you have heard before. It is told by Henry of Hunting- 
don, which, though not the best authority of all, is a great 
deal better than such stories generally have. I mean how 
King Cnut was one day by the sea-shore near Southampton, 
and when some of the men who were with him spoke of his 
power and greatness,^ he bade a chair to be placed close to 
the water's edge. Then said Cnut, '' O sea, I am thy lord-; my 
ships sail over thee whither I will, and this land against which 
thou dashest is mine ; stay then thy waves, and dare not to wet 
the feet of thy lord and master." But the waves came on, for 
the tide was now coming in, and they came round the chair on 
which Cnut was sitting and they wetted his feet and his clothes. 
Then spake King Cnut to the men that were with him : " Ye 
see now how weak is the power of Kings and of all men, for ye 
see that the waves will not hearken to my voice. Honour then 
God only and serve Him, for Him do all things obey." Now 
from that day would not King Cnut wear his crown, but he 
put it on the head of the image of our Lord in the Old Minster 
at Winchester. 

King Cnut seems also to have been very fond of the church 
of Ely, which then was not a Bishoprick but an Abbey. So 
the Ely monks had two or three stories to tell about him. He 
used often to come with the Lady Emma and some of his chief 
men and keep the Feast of the Purification or Candlemas-Day 
with them. One time he was going by water, and as he saw 
the minster rising above him on the island, and heard the 

1 This is not in Henry's story, but it seems implied to give the tale 
any meaning. 



THE REIGN OF CNUT. 241 

voices of the monks singing in the choir, he was much pleased, 
and at once himself made a song in English, of which the 
beginning was : 

Merie sungen Se muneches binnen Ely, 
Ba Cnut ching reu c5er by ; 
RoweS, cnites, noer the land, 
And here we )?es muneches saeng. 

I do not know whether you can make that out j I think you 
should be able to do so, all except the word hin7ien^ and there 
your High-Dutch will help you. But the words, as we have 
them, can hardly be so old as Cnut's time ; but I copy them, 
as they are, out of the History of Ely, which goes on to say 
that the song of which these lines were the beginning was sung 
in choirs — can this mean choirs of churches ? — and became a 
proverb. So King Cnut, as he made his song, went on singing 
till he came to land, when the monks met him in procession 
and led him to the minster, w^here he confirmed all their rights 
and privileges, and laid the charter on the high altar by the 
tomb of their great saint ^thelthryth, called in Latin Ethel- 
dreda. And another Candlemas they tell us that there was a 
great frost, so that there was no going by water ; the King 
therefore got a sledge, but, as they were not sure whether the 
ice would bear the sledge, a churl of those parts named 
Brihtmaer, who, because he was very stout and fat, was called 
Budde^^ offered to go first, because if the ice would bear him it 
would bear anything, much more King Cnut, who was a small 
man. So Brihtmeer went first, and, as the ice bore him very 
well, King Cnut followed in his sledge, and he gave to Briht- 
mser and his lands certain rights, which Brihtm^r's descendants 
still enjoyed when the account was written. 

These are pleasant stories enough, and I know no reason 
why they should not be true. But we will go back to greater 
matters which are written in the Chronicles. I told you that 
in 1 018 the great tax was laid on. In the same year there w^as 
a great meetmg of the Wise Men, both English and Danish, at 
Oxford, and they renewed '' Edgar's Law." This is a fomi 
of words which you will often meet with in these times. People 

^ So it is in the Ely History ; but I do not know what word is m^ant. 

R 



242 OLD ENGLISH HISTOR V FOR CHILDREN. 

ask for the Law of a particular King, generally the last who 
was thought to have reigned well, or who was looked back to 
with any sort of love. It means much more than merely to 
have the laws enforced as they stood in his reign ; it means that 
people wished to be governed in the same good way in which 
they were governed in his time. So now, after all the wretched- 
ness of the reign of ^thelred, men looked back to the great 
King Edgar's days as the happy time, and they asked for Edgar's 
Law. Some time later we shall find the men of Northumber- 
land in the same way asking for Cnut's Law. And after the 
Norman Conquest everybody asked for King Edward's Law, 
and the Norman Kings often promised to give it; but they 
could not give King Edward's Law in the sense in which the 
English people meant, unless they and all the Normans who 
had come into the land had gone away again. 

I told you that Cnut was constantly warring in the North, 
and many Englishmen served in those wars, and Earl Godwine 
in particular is said to have greatly distinguished himself But 
in England itself everything was very quiet, and it must have 
been felt as a very happy time after all the wretched years of 
fighting with the Danes. So the Chronicles have really hardly 
anything to tell us all through Cnut's reign, only such things 
as the deaths and appointments of Bishops, the translation of 
Saint ^Ifheah, and a little about Cnut's Northern wars. 

One of the most remarkable things in Cnut's life is his 
pilgrimage to Rome. I think I explained to you about 
pilgrimages when I was talking about King ^thelwulf going 
thither. Next in merit, men thought, to praying at the tomb 
of our Lord at Jerusalem was praying at the tombs of the 
Apostles Peter and Paul at Rome. So a great many people 
made the pilgrimage to Rome, and, busy as Cnut was with 
his many Kingdoms, he found time to make it also. This 
was in the year 1027. It was the year in which the Em- 
peror Conrad was crowned at Rome at Easter, and Cnut 
and King Rudolf of Burgundy were both at the crowning, 
and the Emperor walked from Saint Peter's church to his 
palace between the two Kings. Of course Cnut made great 
gifts and gave great alms both at Rome and in other places 
that he went through, and he procured that the English 



THE REIGN OF CNUT, 243 

school at Rome should be free from all taxes. But the most 
notable thing about Cnut's pilgrimage is the letter which he 
wrote from Rome to the people of England, and sent home by 
Lyfing, Abbot of Tavistock, who was afterwards a very famous 
Bishop. It is just like the letter of a father to his children, and 
it makes us think better of Cnut than anything else that we 
know of him. It is addressed to the Archbishops ^thelnoth and 
yElfric, to the Bishops and great men, and to the whole nation 
of the English, both nobles and commons. He tells them, just 
as a father who was away from home might tell his children, all 
that he had seen, how he had visited the holy places, and how 
he was there at Easter with Pope John and the Emperor, mth 
King Rudolf and a great number of other princes and people 
of all sorts, and how much honour everybody paid him, and 
what rich gifts everybody gave him, especially the Emperor. 
Then he goes on to say how he had a talk with the Pope and 
the Emperor and with King Rudolf — because he commanded 
the passes of the Alps — and other princes, and persuaded them 
to take away various tolls and other annoyances by which Eng- 
lish and Danish travellers, both pilgrims and merchants, had been 
aggrieved. Then he tells them how he complained to the Pope 
of the great sums which were wrung from English Archbishops 
when they went to Rome for the pallium^ and how the Pope 
promised that it should not be so any more. And then comes 
the best part of the letter. For Cnut there says that he has 
made up his mind to amend his life in every way, and to rule all 
his Kingdoms and nations justly and piously, and to do right 
judgement in all things, and that anything that he has done 
wrong through the violence or carelessness of youth he hopes, 
by God's help, to set right. Then he bids all his governors and 
officers everywhere to deal justly with all folk, rich and poor, 
and to do violence to no man, and not to make the King's 
needs an excuse for any wrong, ^^ for I have no need of money 
gathered by unrighteousness." Then he says that he is going into 
Denmark to settle matters there, and that he shall then come 
into England. He says he tells them all this, because he is sure 
they will be glad to hear how well he has fared on his journey, 
and how they knov>^ that he has not spared any trouble, and 
never will, to do anything that can be for the good of all his 

R 2 



244 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

people. He then winds up by telling them that they must pay 
all church-dues before he comes back, and that, if he finds 
anything of the sort unpaid when he does come, he shall exact 
it all without fail. Now surely one cannot help thinking well 
of the man who could write such a letter as this ; there is 
something so honest and earnest about it. Also at some time 
of his reign after 1028 Cnut put out a Code of Laws by the 
authority of the Wise Men. Like most of these codes, they are 
mostly the old laws over again, and a great part consists more 
of moral and religious advice than of what we should call Laws. 
And the substance of all is to be found at the beginning, which 
runs thus : — 

" That is, then erst [first] that they, over all other things, one 
God ever would love and worship, and one Christendom with 
one mind hold, and Cnut King love with right truth." 

Some part however are real laws, and Cnut, like Edgar, 
orders very cruel punishments against thieves. The West- 
Saxons, the Mercians, and the Danes are all to keep their 
own customs. All heathendom is to be forsaken; no doubt 
some of the Danes were still heathens, and even some of the 
English may have gone over to their worship when the heathen 
Gods seemed to be the stronger. Every man might hunt 
on his own ground, but there are strict laws against those 
who poached on the royal forests. But these last are chiefly 
found in some Latin laws, about which learned men are not 
so sure as about the others whether they are really of Cnufs 
making or not. 

Another thing that I have to tell you about this great King is 
that in 1031 he fully brought Scotland to submission. We may 
be sure that, all through the reign of ^thelred, the submission 
of the Scots and the other vassal nations had been very doubt- 
ful. We have heard of one or two incursions of the Scots in 
^thelred's reign; and just at the beginning of Cnut's reign, 
before his power was well established, Malcolm King of Scots 
again invaded Northumberland and defeated the English in a 
battle at Carham. It is also said that Duncan the Under-king 
of Cumberland, the nephew of Malcolm, refused to become 
Cnut's man, saying that Cnut was not the lawful King of the 
English. But he was made to submit to Cnut all the same. 



THE REIGN OF CNUT, 245 

But it is more certain that Cnut now went into Scotland, and 
that Malcolm King of Scots " bowed to him ;" and so did two 
other Kings, Under-kings no doubt of Malcolm, whom our 
Chronicles call Maelb^the and Jehmarc. This Maelbsethe must 
be the same as Macbeth, who was aftervvards King of Scots, of 
whom you ^\dll hear again, and whose name, as well as Dun- 
can's, has been made famous by one of Shakespere's plays. 

Through all the time of Cnut's reign we hear of no wars at 
all in England itself. For Cnut's hand was quite strong enough 
to keep down everybody within the country, and those who 
used to come and invade England, the Danes and Northmen, 
were now fellow-subjects of the English. But it seems that 
once during his time a foreign enemy thought of attacking 
England. You will remember that the two ^Ethelings, the sons 
of ^thelred and Emma, Alfred and Edward, were still in Nor- 
mandy under the care of their uncle Duke Richard. In 1026 
Duke Richard died, and the next Duke, his son Richard the 
Third, died very soon after him. Then in 1028 Robert, the 
younger son of Richard the Good, succeeded. He was the 
father of William the Conqueror and was called Robert the 
Magnificent, and sometimes, I know not why, as he was not 
a very bad man, Robert the Devil. The Norman writers tell 
us that he thought of doing something for his cousins, and sent 
an embassy to Cnut bidding him "give them their own," which 
I suppose means the Cro^vn of England. You may be sure that 
Cnut was not likely to do any such thing j so, when he refused, 
Duke Robert fitted out a fleet to conquer England and bring 
back the ^thelings by force. But the ships were driven back, 
and many of them were broken by a contrary wind ; so they got 
no further than the Isle of Jersey. Duke Robert's son fared 
better when he set sail to get England, not for his cousin, but 
for himself But the Normans tell us, though one can hardly 
believe it, that Cnut was so frightened that he promised to leave 
half the Kingdom of England to the JEtheHngs at his death. 
You must remember that the mother of these young men, 
Emma, was all this while Cnut's wife ; but she seems to have 
quite forgotten her former husband and children, and to have 
thought only about her children by Cnut, Harthacnut and his 
sister Gunhild. Gunhild was married to King Henry, the son 



246 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

of the Emperor Conrad, who was afterwards the Emperor 
Henry the Third.^ But she was not the mother of his son 
the Emperor Henry the Fourth, who was the son of Henry's 
second wife^ Agnes of Poitiers. 

In the year 1035, on November 11, being, it seems, only forty 
years old, King Cnut died at Shaftesbury, and was buried in the 
Old Minster at Winchester. 



§ 4. The Reign of King Harold the Son of Cnut. 

1035— 1040. 

King Cnut left a son named Harthacnut, who was the child 
of the Lady ^Ifgifu-Emma. There were also two other young 
men who were said to be the sons of Cnut and of another 
^Ifgifu, the daughter of Earl ^Ifhelm who was murdered by 
Eadric. Their names were Swegen and Harold. But many 
people did not believe that they were Cnut's sons at all, so 
that, when the King died, there was a great question as to who 
should succeed him. It seems that, of Cnut's three Kingdoms, 
Swegen got Norway and Harthacnut got Denmark without any 
trouble. But in England men were much divided. The Wise 
Men met at Oxford, and Earl Leofric and most of the Thanes 
north of Thames and the seafaring men of London were all 
for Harold, but Earl Godwine and the West-Saxons were for 
Harthacnut. This seems odd, as one would have thought that 
Harold, who may have been the son of two English parents, 
would have seemed more of an Englishman than Harthacnut, 
who was the son of a Danish father and a Norman mother. I 
can only suppose that Cnut had reigned so well in the latter 
part of his time that men were anxious to do whatever he wished, 
and that they liked one who was undoubtedly his son rather 
than anybody else. Emma too had lived so long in England as 

1 The Emperors of the name of Henry are reckoned in two ways. This 
Henry who married Gunhild is called by the Germans Henry the Third, by 
the Italians Henry the Second. This is because he was the third German 
King of the name, but only the second Emperor. For you know that the 
first King Henry, Henry the Fowler, was never crowned Emperor, nor 
ever w^ent into Italy at all. The Italian way of reckoning is therefore the 
more accurate, but the German way is more commonly used in England. 



THE REIGN OF HAROLD THE SON OF CNUT, 247 

the wife of two Kings that she perhaps seemed to the people 
by this time to be one of themselves. So, after a good deal of 
disputing, the Kingdom was divided, as it had been between 
Cnut and Edmund. Harold reigned to the North of the 
Thames, and Harthacnut to the South. Or in truth w^e cannot 
say that Harthacnut reigned at all, for he stayed in Denmark, 
and his mother Emma and Earl Godwine governed in his 
name. This Earl Godwine was noWj for a long time onwards, 
the greatest man in England, and we shall always find him 
standing up for the rights and freedom of England against 
strangers. Yet it is very hard to say who he was. He was 
certainly in favour with Cnut from quite the beginning of his 
reign, and he distinguished himself, as I have told you, in 
Cnut's wars in the North. He married a Danish wife, Gytha, 
the sister of Ulf, a Danish Earl, who was himself married to 
Estrith, Cnut's sister. Some make out that Godwine married 
a sister or daughter of Cnut himself, but that cannot well be. 
Godwdne and Gytha had many children, of all of whom you 
will hear again, of one especially, namely Harold, our last 
English King. ' But, though we know a great deal about God- 
wine's children, it is not so easy to say anything about his 
parents. His father's name was Wulfnoth. Some make out 
that he was the son of Wulfnoth who ran aw^ay and burned the 
ships in 1009, and also that he was the great-nephew of Eadric. 
Now he could not very well have been both these at once, and 
he could hardly have been the gi-eat-nephew of Eadric in any 
case. For Eadric married Eadgyth or Edith the daughter of 
King ^thelred, and God^\ine's daughter Edith married King 
Edward the son of King ^thelred. Now Edith the daughter 
of ^thelred was several years older than her half-brother 
Edward, and no doubt both Eadric and King Edward were a 
good deal older than their waves. Still, even allowing for all this, 
it is not likely that a man should marry the great-granddaughter 
of the brother-in-law of his half-sister. ^ Another story is that, 

1 Edward was bom between 1002 and 1005. He must therefore have 
been forty or more when he married Edith in 1045. \Ye do not know 
when Edith the daughter of yEthelred was born ; it must have been 
before 1002, when her father married again ; it is not likely to have been 
much before 990, as ^Ethelred was bom in 969, and we do not know that 
she was his eldest child. 



248 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN, 

after the battle of Sherstone between Edmund and Cnut, the 
Danish Earl Ulf lost his way, and fell in with a young man 
named Godwine, who led him to the house of his father Wulf- 
noth, seemingly a well-to-do yeoman in those parts. Ulf was 
so pleased with young Godwine that he took him with him, 
introduced him to Cnut, did all he could for his advancement, 
and gave him his sister in marriage. Such, according to this 
story, was the beginning of the fortunes of the great Godwine, 
Earl of the West-Saxons, and father of Harold, King of the 
English. Now I do not at all tell you that this story is true ; 
but I think that all these contradictions help to show that ver}^ 
little was known about Godwine's real birth, and that therefore 
he was most likely not of any illustrious family. Anyhow he 
made his way by his own valour and ability, which seem to 
have won him the favour first of the ^theling ^thelstan the 
brother of King Edmund, and afte^^^ards of Cnut himself. Very 
early in Cnut's reign he was made an Earl, and a few years 
afterwards Cnut made him Earl over all Wessex, to rule in his 
name when he was out of England. So when Cnut died, he 
remained Earl of the West-Saxons under Harthacnut, Harold, 
and Edward. 

In the next year, 1036, a great crime was done, which has 
brought Earl Godwine's name into great disgrace, but I cannot 
see any proof that he had anything to do with it. The story is 
told in a great many ways ; so I must tell it you in the way 
which seems to me most likely to be true. Though Harthacnut 
had been made King over part of England, that is, over 
Wessex,^ he still stayed in Denmark, and people in England 
began to be displeased with him for not coming over. It 
was most likely this which made Alfred, the son of ^thelred 
and Emma, think that he might have some chance of getting 
for himself the crown of England, or, at any rate, the crown of 
Wessex. I do not know whether Emma or Godwine or any 
one else invited him, but it is quite certain that he came over 
from Normandy, where he had been staying, as you know, all 
the time of Cnut's reign, and that he brought a good many 
Norman followers with him. It is not clear whether he ever 

1 Wessex, you will remember, now takes in Kent and Sussex ; all 

Enc^land, in short, scutli of the Thames. 



THE REIGN OF HAROLD THE SON OF CNUT, 249 

saw his mother or not j indeed some say that Emma was so 
much fonder of her children by Cnut than of her children by 
-^thelred that she herself had a hand in the bloody work that 
followed. It seems that Earl Godwine met the ^theling at 
Guildford, mth what object it is not easy to say. Soon after 
this the ^Etheling was seized by Harold's servants, his com- 
panions were killed, tortured, or mutilated, and he himself 
was taken to Ely, where his eyes were put out, and he soon 
afterwards died. Now it is clear that some people at the 
time attributed all this cruelty to Godwine, and many later 
writers have charged him with it. But the evidence does 
not seemx at all strong enough to convict him,^ and it is most 
unlikely that he should have had any hand in any such business. 
For Godwine was not the minister of Harold, but of Hartha- 
cnut; he had opposed Harold's election, and he had no 
motive to betray the ^theling to him. It is far more likely 
that Harold's people were looking out, and that they seized 
Alfred without God wine's having anything to do with the 
matter. 

The next year, 1037, men got quite tired of waiting for 
Harthacnut, so Harold was chosen full King over all England 
by the whole people. Emma was now driven out of the land. 
She was afraid to go back to Normandy, where things were 
just now in great confusion, as T shall tell you presently. So 
she went to live at Bruges in Flanders, where the Marquess 
Baldwin received her very kindly. 

During the two next years nothing is mentioned except the 
succession of Bishops, and some fighting, as usual, with the 
Welsh. 

In 1040 Harold died at Oxford, and was buried at West- 
minster j he was the first King who was buried there. 

1 Godwine is charged with this crime in one version, but one only, of 
the Chronicles, and the story can hardly be reconciled with the history as 
given in the other versions. The Encomhim Evmice tells the tale much 
as I do. 



250 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

§ 5. The Reign of King Harthacnut. 
1040 — 1042. 

When King Harold died, Harthacnut was at Bruges with 
his mother, having joined her there the year before. He was 
now chosen King, and messengers were sent to bring him over. 
So he came and became King over all England, but he reigned 
only two years, and did no good while he reigned. He brought 
with him sixty ships with Danish crews, and the first thing he 
did was to lay a heavy tax on the whole land to pay these 
Danes, much as we read of in times past. He then caused 
the body of the late King Harold to be dug up and thrown 
into a fen, and he sent ^Ifric Archbishop of York, and Earl 
Godwine, and several other great men, to see this pleasant 
piece of work done. ^Ifric then accused Godwine and 
Lyfing Bishop of Worcester of having had a hand in the 
murder of Alfred the King's half-brother. Harthacnut was 
very wroth and took away Lyfing's Bishoprick, which he gave 
to ^Ifric to hold with his own Archbishoprick. Perhaps you 
will think that this does not say much for the worth of ^Ifric's 
witness against Lyfing. As for Godwine, he made oath after 
the usual fashion that he had not done the crime with which 
he was charged, most of the Earls and Thanes of the land 
swearing with him. This is what is called compiwgatioii. He 
had however to purchase the King's favour by giving him a 
splendid ship, manned by eighty picked men, all magnificently 
armed. 

The tax had now to be levied, and the next thing was 
that Harthacnut in 1041 sent his housecarls through the 
land to gather it. I told you a little about the housecarls 
when I was speaking of the reign of Cnut. I will now tell you 
a little more, as you will often hear of them again. They were 
the first soldiers that were regularly kept and paid in England. 
In old times, Kings and Aldermen had their own followers, 
and every man was bound to serve when he was wanted, 
but there was no standifig army as there is now, no men who 
were soldiers as their regular calling, and who were always under 



THE REIGN OF HAR THA CNUT. 25 1 

arms and always paid. Cnut was the first King to keep a 
force of this kind, which he made of picked men, Danes, 
Enghshmen, and others. These housecarls were very good 
soldiers, and we shall afterwards see the use of having such 
a force, but they were" not at all the right people to be tax- 
gatherers. So at Worcester the people revolted and killed two 
of the housecarls who had taken refuge in the tower of the 
minster. Harthacnut was very wroth at this, and he sent all 
the great Earls, including the three famous ones, Godwine 
Earl of the West-Saxons, Leofric Earl of the Mercians, and 
Siward Earl of the Northumbrians, and bade them kill all 
the people of Worcester, burn the city, and ravage the 
country. I suspect that the Earls did not much like their 
errand, and that they let the people know what was coming; 
for hardly anybody was killed, the people all getting away into 
an island in the Severn, called Beverege, that is Beaverey 
or Beaver-Island.^ But the town was burned and so was 
the minster, and the country round about was harried. I do 
not know whether the King thought that Archbishop ^Ifric, 
who was then Bishop of Worcester, had anything to do with 
the murder of his housecarls. At any rate he took away the 
Bishoprick from him, and gave it back again to the former 
Bishop I^yfing. Lyfing had also the Bishopricks of Devonshire 
and Cornwall, which in the time of the next King, Edward, 
were joined into the one Bishoprick of Exeter. 

I suppose that the Lady Emma had come back again with 
her son Harthacnut in 1040. The King now sent over to 
Normandy for his half-brother Edward, who came and lived at 
his court. 

The next year, 1042, King Harthacnut died on the 8th of June. 
He was at Lambeth, at the wedding-feast of Gytha the daughter 
of Osgod Clapa, a man of great power. She was married to Tofig 
the Proud, a Dane and the King's standard-bearer. This Tofig 
was the first founder of the church at Waltham, of which you 



^ You see that there used to be beavers in England, though there are 
none now. Giraldus Cambrensis, who wrote in the time of Henry the 
Second and his sons, says that there were none left in his time in any part 
of Britain, save only in the river Teifi in Cardiganshire. 



252 OLD ENGLISH HIS TOR Y FOR CHILDREN. 

will hear more. The King stood drinking, I suppose to the 
health of the new-married pair, when he suddenly fell down, 
and died. He was carried to Winchester and buried by the 
side of his father Cnut. 

We have now done with the Danish Kings. If Cnut's sons 
had been like himself, his descendants might very likely have 
gone on reigning in England. But people were tired of Kings 
like Harold and Harthacnut, and they were determined to have 
again a King of their own people. So you will see that two 
more English Kings reigned before the coming of William the 
Conqueror and his Normans. 



CHAPTER XL 

THE REIGN OF KING EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. 1042—1066. 

§ I. From the Election of King Edward to the Banish- 
ment OF Earl Godwine. 

1042^ — 1051. 

All folk, we now read, chose Edward to be King. This was 
Edward the son of ^thelred and Emma. He was in truth the 
only man of either the English or the Danish royal family who 
was at hand. We hear nothing of any children of either 
Harold or Harthacnut, and, if there were any, they must have 
been quite little ones. And the other Edward, the son of 
Edmund Ironside, was away in Hungary. There seems to 
have been a Danish party in favour of Cnuf s nephew Swegen 
Estrithson, the son of his sister Estrith and the Earl Ulf, but 
the English were determined to have a King of the old house, 
so they chose Edward at once at London, even before Hartha- 
cnut was buried. I am inclined to think, for one or two reasons, 
that Edward, though he was now living with his brother Har- 
thacnut, was just at this moment in Normandy, on a visit to 
some of hi^ friends there or on a pilgrimage to some Norman 
church. It is certain that his coronation happened at Easter 
the next year, when he was crowned at Winchester; and that, 
before that, there was another meeting at Gillingham in Dorset- 
shire, at which Edward was finally chosen. The chief leaders 
in this business were Earl Godwine and Bishop Lyfing. 
Godwine was a very eloquent speaker, and could win over 
everybody to his side. Still there were some people who 
opposed Edward's election and who were afterwards banished 
and otherwise punished. It was for this, I suppose, that Osgod 



254 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN, 

Clapa was banished, and that ^thelstan, the son of Tofig the 
Proud, ^ lost his estate at Waltham, of which I shall speak 
again. Earl Godwine now became the King's chief adviser, and 
nearly two years after his coronation, in January 1045, Edward 
married Godwine' s daughter Edith, but they had no children. 

The English no doubt thought that, in choosing Edward, 
they were choosing an English King once more. But in truth, 
except so far as Earl Godwine did what he could to keep 
matters straight, they were really better off under such a Dane 
as Cnut than under such an Englishman as Edward. They 
hardly remem.bered that, though Edward was born in England, 
he had been taken to Normandy when he was a boy, and had 
lived there all the time of Cnut and Harold. He had in fact 
been brought up as a Frenchman ; all his feelings and notions 
were French and not English ; he was very fond of his young 
cousin Duke William ; and his chief thought was to get his 
other French^ friends over to England, and to give them as 
many estates and offices as he could. You may suppose that 
the English people, with Earl Godwine at their head, did not 
at all like this, and it soon, as you will see, led to great disputes. 

There was however one person of Norman birth in the land 
for whom King Edward had not much love. This was his own 
mother Emma, the Queen Dowager, as we should now call her, 
or, as the Chroniclers call her, the Old Lady. I told you that she 
cared much more for Cnut and her children by him than for 
her sons by ^thelred, and she is said to have treated Edward 
harshly. It is hard to see when this could have been, as, since 
he was a child, she had hardly seen him till the time when he 
came back to England under Harthacnut. But at any rate 
mother and son were not fond of one another. So in the 
November of the year in which he was crowned, King Edward, 
with the three great Earls, Godwine, Leofric, and Siward, rode 
straight from Gloucester, where they had been holding a meeting 

^ He could not have been the son of Gytha whom Tofig had just married; 
so she must have been his second wife. 

2 As the Normans now spoke French, our Chronicles always call them 
Frenchmen. So when men are called Frenchmen in the Chronicles, they 
may either be Normans or men from other parts of Gaul. Edward had 
plenty of both sorts about him. , ' 



THE REIGN OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR, 255 

of the Wise Men, to Winchester, where the Old Lady was living. 
They took away all her treasures of gold, silver, and precious 
stones, but they left her enough to live on, and bade her stay 
quietly at Winchester. 

For two or three years we do not hear much except about 
the appointments and deaths of Bishops and Abbots. But 
of these Prelates I must mention one in particular, namely 
Stigand the King's chaplain, who had been priest of Cnut's 
minster at Assandun, and who in 1044 became Bishop of 
Elmham or of the East-Angles. We shall often hear of 
him again. Also in the same year we hear of the banish- 
ment of Gunhild, the niece of King Cnut. She was the 
daughter of his sister and of Wyrtgeom King of the Wends. 
The Wends are the Slavonic people in Mecklenburg and 
all that part of Germany, with whom the Danish Kings 
often had wars. She was first married to Hakon, who was 
called the doughty Earl, and who was banished by Cnut 
and afterwards died at sea. She then married another Ear], 
Harold, who was also dead, and now she and her two sons, 
Thurkill and Heming, were banished. I suppose they had had 
some hand in the opposition to King Edward's election. So 
she went away, as everybody seems to have gone about this 
time, to Marquess Baldwin at Bruges, and thence into Demr.ark. 

King Edward, however, was on good terms with Swegen of 
Denmark. This King Swegen was a nephew of the great Cnut, 
being a son of his sister Estrith by the Earl Ulf, the same w^hom 
Cnut had killed, and who is said to have brought Earl Godwine 
forward in his youth. You will remember that Gytha, God- 
wine's wife, was Ulf s sister, so that she was aunt to King Swegen. 
At this time, in 1045, Magnus, King of the Norwegians or 
Northmen, thought of invading England. He said that he and 
Harthacnut had settled that, whichever of them died first, the 
other should succeed him, so he thought that he ought to have 
both England and Denmark, and not either Edward or Swegen. 
But Edward is said to have answered — perhaps Godwine put 
the words in his mouth — that he was King by the choice of the 
whole people of England, and that he would not give up his 
crown to any man wiiile he lived. So King Edward got ready 
a fleet at Sandwich to fight against Magnus if he came. But 



256 OLD ENGLISH HLSTORY FOR CHILDREN, 

there was no need for any fighting, because King Swegen of 
Denmark met the Northmen on the way and hindered them from 
coming. Two years after this, in 1047, Swegen was fiercely 
attacked by Magnus ; so he very naturally asked for help from 
England in return for the great service which he had done. So 
the Wise Men met to settle what should be done. And Earl 
Godwine proposed to send fifty ships to Swegen's help. But 
Earl Leofric spoke against this, and the more part voted with 
him ; so no help was sent to Swegen, and he was driven out of 
his kingdom, only presently Magnus died, and then Swegen got 
his kingdom again. Magnus was succeeded in Norway by 
Harold, surnamed Hardrada,^ of whom we shall hear again. 

Though the English would not help Swegen, yet they soon 
were engaged in a war with which it would seem that England 
had less to do than with the war in the North. In 1049 the 
Emperor Henry, King Edward's brother-in-law, was at war with 
Baldwin of Flanders, because he had burned his palace at 
Nimwegen. So he called on King Swegen, who was his vassal, 
to help him with his fleet, which he did, and he begged ^ King 
Edward, not as a vassal, but as a friend and brother, to watch 
with his fleet lest Baldwin should escape by sea. So King 
Edward watched with his fleet at Sandwich till the Marquess 
had submitted to the Emperor. 

These were all the foreign wars of this reign, if w^e can call 
them wars, when there seems to have been no fighting after all. 
At home there was always some fighting with the Welsh, and 
a good deal more was going on which I will now tell you in 
order. First, in 1046, Ealdred Abbot of Tavistock became 
Bishop of Worcester ; we shall often hear of him. And it was 
in this same year that Osgod Clapa was banished. And now 
we begin to hear of the sons of Godwine. Perhaps the great 
Earl was, like many other fathers, too anxious about advancing 
his children. I have told you that his daughter was married to 
the King, and two at least of his sons were already Earls. The 
eldest, Swegen, was Earl of a very odd government, partly in 

1 In English, Hard-rede = stem in counsel. 

2 Florence uses the word mandare when he speaks of the Emperor's 
message to Swegen, rogare when he speaks of his message to Edward. 
Swegen he had a right to command, but not Edward. 



I 



THE REIGN OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR, 257 

Wessex,--partly in Mercia, and taking in both Somersetshire and 
Herefordshire. The second son, Harold, was Earl of the East- 
Angles, taking in not only Norfolk and Suffolk, but Cambridge- 
shire, Huntingdon, and Essex. Gytha's nephew Beorn, brother 
of King Swegen of Denmark, was also an Earl, most likely of 
the Middle- Angles. Swegen was a brave young man, and he 
afterwards showed that he had some good in him ; but he was 
revengeful and violent in all his passions, and therefore he fell 
into some great crimes.. As Earl over Herefordshire, you may 
be sure he had some fighting to do with the Welsh, and in 
1046 he had to go against the South- Welsh King Grufifydd,^ 
and he overcame him. On his way back, he sent for Eadgifu 
(in Latin Edgiva), the Abbess of Leominster, a great monas- 
tery in Herefordshire, and kept her with him for some time, 
and wanted to marry her. But this could not be, because 
she was a nun. So he threw up his Earldom, and left Eng- 
land, and went away, like everybody else, first to Bruges and 
then to Denmark. The King seems to have divided his lord 
ships and property between his brother Harold and his cousin 
Beorn. But when King Edward lay A\ith the fleet at Sand- 
wich, Swegen came mth eight ships and prayed the King to 
take him back, and to restore his lands to him. But Harold 
and Beorn both said that they would not give up what the 
King had given them. And I suppose that Earl Godwine him- 
self approved of their refusal, for King Edward would not let 
Swegen come in. Just now news came that Osgod Clapa had 
come back with some ships from Denmark, and was lying off 
the coast of Flanders. So they stayed to watch him. Osgod 
himself soon went back to Denmark, but some of his ships 
harried the coast of Essex. So there was much sailing back- 
wards and forwards of Earl Godwine and Earl Harold and all 
the people ; and at last Swegen persuaded Beorn, who was at 
Pevensey in Sussex, to get into his ship and go with him to 
Sandwich to the King, and try to get him into the King's favour 
again. But, instead of sailing to Sandwich, Swegen put Beorn 
in bonds, and sailed west to Exmouth, and there slew him and 

^ There were two Gmffydds at this time, one in North, the other in South 
Wales ; you must be careful to distinguish the two. Gruffydd of North Wales 
was just now for a time in alliance with Swegen against his namesake. 

S 



258 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

buried him, and got back again to Flanders. Everybody was 
very much enraged at this. Most likely, if Swegen and Beorn 
had quarrelled and fought, and if one of them had killed the 
other in fair fight, few people in those fierce times would have 
seen much harm in it. But for a man to kill another, especially 
his near kinsman, by guile was thought base and cowardly. So 
the King and all the army declared Swegen an outlaw and a 
''- nithing," the most disgraceful name in the language, meaning 
an utterly worthless fellow. Of his eight ships, all but two 
forsook him. Then Earl Harold and all Beorn 's friends and 
the sailors from London went to Exmouth and took up the 
body of Beorn and carried it to Winchester, and buried it in the 
Old Minster by his uncle King Cnut. But it is strange to read 
that in the next year Bishop Ealdred persuaded the King to 
'* inlaw "^ Swegen and to give him his Earldom again. Ealdred 
is said to have been a great peacemaker, and to have been able 
to reconcile the bitterest enemies. But one is surprised to find 
him exerting himself on behalf of one stained widi such crimes 
as those of Swegen. But perhaps Swegen already showed signs 
of repentance and amendment. We hear nothing more of him 
but what is good. 

But before Swegen came back, indeed before the year 1049 
was out. Bishop Ealdred had less luck in another business, 
which you will perhaps say was not so much in his own line. 
In August thirty-six Danish ships from Ireland sailed up the 
Bristol Channel to the mouth of the Usk. There Gruffydd the 
South- Welsh King met them, and joined his forces with theirs, 
and they crossed the Wye and did much damage. Then Ealdred 
got together some troops from Gloucestershire and Hereford- 
shire. Gloucestershire, you will remember, was in his Diocese as 
Bishop of Winchester. But of his troops some were Welshmen : 
part of Herefordshire certainly, and perhaps Gloucestershire 
west of the Severn, was still largely Welsh, just like Cornwall 
and Devonshire. So the Welshmen in the Bishop's army sent 
to King Gruffydd, and begged him to make a sudden attack 
on the English. This they did, both Danes and Welsh ; and 
most of Ealdred's men were killed, and the rest took to flight. 

1 The opposite to " outlaw ; " to restore a man to his country and to the 
rights and property which he has forfeited. 



THE REIGN OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. 259 

All this time King Edward was promoting Frenchmen and 
other foreigners more and more, especially to Bishopricks. He 
had already given the Bishoprick of London to a Norman monk 
named Robert, who had been Abbot of Jumieges by the Seine. 
I know no good of him, except that he built the great minster 
at Jumieges, which is now in ruins. And now this year the 
Bishoprick of Dorchester^ was vacant, and the King gave it to 
another Norman named Ulf, making a very bad choice, for, as 
the Chronicles say, he "did nought. bishop-like." He went to 
Rome, and Pope Leo, who was a very good Pope, was very near 
depriving him of the Bishoprick; he '^almost broke his staff," 
as the Chronicle saj^s, because Ulf was so unlearned that he 
could hardly read the Church service. But Ulf bribed, not the 
Pope himself, I am quite sure,. but people about him, and so 
kept the Bishoprick. And the next year, 1050, when Eadsige. 
the Archbishop of Canterbury, died, King Edward gave the Arch- 
bishoprick to Bishop Robert, even though the monks of Christ 
Church and Earl Godwine wished him to give it to one ^Ifric an 
Englishman. All this must have seemed very strange and irk- 
some to the English people. There had not been a foreigner 
Archbishop of Canterbury, perhaps not Bishop of any see at 
all, since the days just after the conversion of the English, 
when of course they were obliged to have Romans and other 
foreigners for a little while. And now, as if there was nobody 
in England good enough for any high place, these Frenchmen 
were given Bishopricks and other high offices, and were gene- 
rally set to suck up the fat of the land. Even those who did not 
stay in England to hold estates and offices came over to see 
their good friend the King and to get what they could out of 
him. Archbishop Robert especially was always foremost in mis- 
chief; he tried to set the King against Earl Godwine and to 
make him believe that Godwine had had a hand in the death of 
his brother Alfred. Then again the King's sister Godgifu had 
married a Frenchman, Drogo Count of Mantes, and her son 
Ralph had an Earldom, and other Normans and Frenchmen 
had offices and estates, and they began to build castles, after 

1 That is Dorchester in Oxfordshire, which I spoke of in p. 61 ; the 
Bishoprick was afterwards moved to Lincoln. It was the largest Diocese 
in England, stretching from the Thames to the Humber. 

S 2 



26o OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

the fashion of their own country, which was not yet in use in 
England. The towns in England were fortified, as you have 
often heard from the time of the great fortress-builders, 
Edward the Elder and his sister the Lady of the Mercians. But 
men had not begun to build themselves castles, as they did in 
Normandy, on their own estates. These castles were great, 
strong, square towers. The White Tower, the oldest part of the 
Tower of London, built by William the Conqueror, is perhaps 
the grandest in England. Of course those belonging to private 
lords were not so large and grand as the Tower of London, 
which w^as the King's palace. But men greatly disliked these 
foreign lords and their castles, which gave them the means of 
oppressing the people in many ways which the natural English 
Earls and Thanes never thought of. You may be sure that 
people would not bear all this very long ;. and you will soon 
hear how the crash came at last. But there is one thing more 
to tell before I come to this part of my story. Early in 105 1 
King Edward dismissed a great many of his ships, and let off 
the English from the payment of the tax called Heregeld^ which 
was levied for the crews, and which had been paid for thirty- 
eight years, ever since his father ^thelred had taken Thurkill 
the Dane into his service. 

And now things came to such a pitch with the King's 
French favourites that men could bear it no longer. Drogo of 
Mantes, the husband of the King's sister Godgifu, w^as dead, 
and she married another Frenchman, Eustace Count of Bou- 
logne. So, not long after his marriage. Count Eustace came 
over like other people to see his brother-in-law, and got from 
him all that he asked for. Then he turned about to go home. 
So he and his people came to Dover, and, thinking they might 
do just what they pleased. Count Eustace and some of his 
followers wanted to lodge in the house of one of the townsmen 
against his will. When the master of the house would not let 
them in, they killed him ; meanwhile his fellow-townsmen had 
come to help him, and there was a general battle, in which 
about twenty people were killed on each side. But at last 
Count Eustace and his men were driven out of the town : so 
they rode back to the King, who was at Gloucester, and told 
the story their own way, making out that it was not they who 



THE REIGN OF EDWARD THE CONFESS OR. 261 

were to blame, but the men of Dover. So King Edward was 
very wroth, and bade Earl Godwine, as Dover was in his 
Earldom, go and chastise the people of the town for the wrong 
done to his brother-in-law. You may remember that Godwine, 
and others \^4th him, had been sent on the like errand to Wor- 
cester in the time of Harthacnut. They had then done their 
countr}^men as little harm as they could ; but now Earl God- 
wine was much more powerful, and could speak out more 
boldly. So he answered the King plainly that he would do 
nothing of the kind ; no man in his Earldom should be put 
to death without trial ; if the Dover men had done anything 
wrong, let their magistrates be brought before the fleeting of 
the Wise Men, and there be tried fairly. Meanwhile some 
Frenchmen ^ from Herefordshire came about the King and 
set him still more against Godwine and his people. So Earl 
Godmne and his sons. Earl Swegen and Earl Harold, got 
together all the men of their Earldoms, and assembled at 
Beverstone in Gloucestershire, on the top of the Cotswolds 
near Tetbury. Meanwhile the King sent to Siward, the great 
Danish Earl of the Northumbrians, and to Leofric Earl of the 
Mercians, and to his nephew the French Earl Ralph, and 
they came vdth. what forces they could muster, but they could 
not get together such an arm as Godwine's, for, besides the 
men of his own and his sons' Earldoms, many of the best 
men of all England came to him. Then, as the King had 
done no justice. Earl Godwine and his men demanded that 
Count Eustace and the other Frenchmen who had done such 
AATong in their Earldoms should be given up to them. The 
King refused, and his army was very anxious to fight with 
Godwine's army. No doubt in the King's army were many 
Frenchmen, and Earl Siward and his Danes had very likely 

1 The Chronicles call them Welshmen ; but it is plain what sort of 
Welshmen they were. You will remember that Wealh or Welsh originally 
meant foreigners of any sort, and that the Britons were called Welsh 
because they were foreigners. Our forefathers, and the Teutonic people 
generally, called all who spoke the Romance languages Welsh. So the 
French are the Gal- Wealas — the Welsh of Gaul, and the Itahans the Rinn- 
Wealas — the Welsh of Rome. These Welshmen at Herefordshire were Gal- 
Welshmen and not ^r,?^ Welshmen. This should be noted, because William 
of Malmesbury has made a mistake, and thought they were Bret- Welsh. 



262 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

no great love for Godwine and his Saxons. But Godwine 
and his men did not want to fight against the King, if they 
could help it; so they gladly listened to Earl Leofric, who 
proposed that hostages should be given on both sides, and 
that the Wise Men should meet at London and settle ever}^- 
thing. Perhaps Godwine would have done better to have 
pressed his advantage at once, for he did not fare nearly so 
well at London as he had done at Gloucester. The Wise 
Men met, and the King gathered a great army from all parts. 
Godwine also came with many men, but they gradually dropped 
away from him. The Wise Men then declared Swegen an out- 
law and summoned Godwine and Harold to appear before 
them. This was treating them as criminals ; so they refused to 
come, unless they had a safe-conduct and hostages. That is, 
they required that the King should pledge his word that they 
should come and go safely, and also that he should put some 
of his friends into their hands as sureties for his keeping his 
word. This was often done, and in such a case as this it was 
quite reasonable. But the King refused to give the hostages ; so 
Godwine and his sons refused to come. The Wise Men then 
declared them all outlaws, only they gave them five days to 
get them out of the land. So Earl Godwine and his wife Gytha, 
and their sons Swegen, Tostig, and Gyrth, took refuge with 
Baldwin at Bmges. Tostig had just before married Baldwin's 
sister Judith ; indeed Godwine and his sons were called away 
from the wedding feast — tht bride-ale^ as our fathers called it — 
to go and settle all these matters. They went first to the Earl's 
house at Bosham in Sussex, and thence set sail for Flanders 
in a ship filled full of treasure. So they stayed the winter in 
Flanders, but, as you will see, they did not, like so many other 
people, go on into Denmark. But Godwine's other sons, Harold 
and Leofwine, went westwards to Bristol. Bishop Ealdred was 
bidden to go after them and catch them, but he and his men 
loitered on purpose ; so they got off safe in a ship which 
Swegen had got ready, and sailed to Ireland, where they were 
well received by Dermot King of Leinster, and passed the 
winter in Dublin. 

1 The bridaly which people sometimes use wrongly as if it were an 

adjective. 



THE REIGN OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. 263 

So you see the patriotic leaders were driven out of the land, 
and the Frenchmen had it all their own way for a while. First 
of all, the Lady Edith, Earl Godwine's daughter, was robbed 
of all her treasures, and was sent away from court and shut up 
in the monastery at Wherwell, which you will remember was 
founded by ^Ifthryth the King's grandmother. Then more 
Frenchmen got honours. When Robert was made Archbishop, 
the King gave the Bishoprick of London to Spearhafoc (that is 
Sparrowhawk) Abbot of Abingdon. But Robert said that Pope 
Leo had forbidden him to consecrate Spearhafoc as a Bishop ; 
so, when Godwine was gone, the King gave the see to a Norman 
chaplain of his named William. William however was different 
from some of his countrymen,, and made a really good Bishop. 
One Odda was made Earl over all the west part of Godwine's 
Earldom and part of Swegen's, namely over Somerset, Devon, 
Dorset, and " the Wealas," that is, no doubt, over Cornwall. 
Some make out Odda to have been a Frenchman also, partly be- 
cause he is called the King's kinsman. But he might easily be 
the King's kinsman in other ways. And as he had a brother 
named ^Ifric and a sister named Edith, two purely English 
names, I think he must have been an Englishman. But it 
must have been much the same as if he had been a Frenchman, 
as he throughout took the side of the strangers against Earl 
Godwine and the patriots. In other respects however Odda is 
very well spoken of; he was at any rate very fond of the 
monks, and himself turned monk before he died. He built 
the church of Deerhurst in Gloucestershire, which is now 
standing. Harold's Earldom was given to ^Ifgar, the son of 
Leofric Earl of the Mercians. 

Now that Godwine was gone, King Edward had a visitor 
come to see him, who perhaps would not have come, or have 
been allowed to come, while Godmne was at home. This was 
no other than his cousin William Duke of the Normans, who 
lived, as you know, to conquer and reign in England. This 
Duke William was now about twenty-three years old, and he 
had been Duke ever since he was seven years old. For his 
father Duke Robert went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, from 
which he never came back ; but before he went he made the 
Normans swear oaths to his little son. William's mother was 



264 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

named Herleva or Arlette j she was the daughter of a tanner at 
Falaise, where Robert had a castle in which he Hved before he was 
Duke. Herleva had never been married to Robert, and many of 
the Normans did not think it right that her son should be Duke ; 
so there were many disputes and conspiracies against him. But 
William, while he was a boy, had a wise and good guardian called 
Count Gilbert, and at this time his lord the King of the French, 
Henr}^ the First, did his duty very faithfully by his young vassal. 
So young William kept his Duchy through all these difficulties, 
and, as he grew up, he showed himself to be very brave and 
wise, and in 1047 he gained a great victory over the rebels 
at a place called Val-es-Dunes, where King Henry came to 
help him. Duke William governed his Duchy very well and 
wisely, and under him Normandy became one of the most 
flourishing parts of Europe. He also encouraged learning and 
the arts, and built several grand churches, and for the most 
part put very wise and good men in his Bishopricks and 
Abbeys. In short William was a very great prince, and, had 
he stayed in his own country, we might have called him a 
very good prince also. But he was very ambitious, and 
always bent on having his own way, and though I do not 
think he was one of those who took any pleasure in cruelty, he 
did not scruple to do the most cruel things if they at all 
served his purpose. Well, this Duke William came over to 
see his cousin Edward, and, with so many Frenchmen in the 
land, he must have felt himself quite at home. Most likely 
it was now that he began to think that it might not be a hard 
matter to succeed his cousin in a Kingdom which already 
seemed half Norman. And as William always said that Ed- 
ward had left him the English crown, it is most likely that 
Edward did make him some kind of promise at this time. 
But you know that a King of the English could not leave 
his crown to whom he pleased ; he could at most recommend 
the Wise Men to choose this or that man, and it rested with 
them whether they would do so or .not. And when the time 
came, King Edward did not recommend Duke William to 
the Wise Men. Still I think he must have made him some 
kind of promise, or William could hardly have said so much 
about it as he did. At any rate Duke William and many 



THE REIGN OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. 265 

of his companions were received with great honour by the King 
and went away loaded with precious gifts. 

Lastly, during the time that Earl Godwine was away, namely 
in March 1052, the Old Lady Emma or ^Ifgifu, the widow of 
two Kings and the mother of two others, died at Winchester, 
and was buried there in the Old Minster by her husband King 
Cnut. You see that she had been a long time in England, and 
had done very little good all the time she was here. You 
now pretty well understand what mischief had been brought 
about by yEthelred's fancy for marrying a foreign woman. 
Ever since her marriage the land had been gradually filled with 
Normans and Frenchmen, who did nothing but mischief, and 
who made ready the way for William to come over and conquer 
the land altogether. It is odd however that Emma and her son 
Edward agreed so badly. There is a story told, though it is not 
in any writer who lived at the time, that she was once brought to 
trial on various charges of public and private misconduct, but 
that she cleared herself by the ordeal of walking blindfold 
over red-hot ploughshares mthout being hurt. This sort ot 
trial and others of the same kind were anciently allowed when 
the evidence was not clear either way ; for men thought that 
God would not allow an innocent person to be hurt. But there 
are several reasons why this is not at all likely to have happened 
in the case of Emma, and no good writer speaks of it. 

Thus we leave England almost wholly in the hands of the 
King's Frenchmen. But this state of things did not last very 
long. You v/ill be glad to hear, in my next section, how Earl 
Godwine and his son Harold came back the next year, and 
made England England again for fourteen years, till William 
and his Normans came in altogether, and could not be got rid 
of any more. 

§ 2. From the Return of Earl Godwine to the 
Death of King Edward. 

1052 — 1066. 

Things did not go on well in any way while Earl Godwine 
|was in banishment. Gruffydd, the North-Welsh King, thought 
lit was a good time for an inroad ; so he entered Herefordshire, 



266 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

and harried as far as Leominster. Then many Englishmen 
went out against him, and the Frenchmen too from the castles 
Avhich they had built. But Gruffydd fought against them and 
beat them and slew many men, both French and English. 
Meanwhile Earl Godwine and his sons thought of coming home 
again. They tried what they could to be reconciled with the 
King, and they had got both the Marquess Baldwin and Henry 
the King of the French to plead for them. But the Normans 
Avould not let the King hearken. So they now thought it w^as 
high time to try what they could do for themselves, especially 
as they knew quite well that most people in England would be 
very glad to have them back. So they set out, no doubt by 
agreement, from Flanders and Ireland, where they had passed 
the winter. King Edward knew that they were likely to come, 
and sent a fleet to Sandwich to watch, under the two Earls 
Ralph and Odda, of whom you will remember that Ralph was 
a Frenchman. Meanv/hile Harold and Leofwine sailed over 
from Ireland with nine ships, and landed at Porlock in Somer- 
setshire. The people here did not wish them to come in, and 
fought against them. Perhaps they were obliged to do so by 
their Earl Odda, or perhaps, as Swegen had been their ruler, 
they did not love Godwine and his house so much as men did 
in other parts. Or it may have been only because Harold was 
obliged to plunder to get food for his men. At any rate there 
was a battle, and thirty thanes and other men besides were killed, 
and Harold and Leofwine took cattle and other things on board 
their ships, and sailed round the Land's End to meet their 
father. Meanwhile Earl Godwine sailed forth from Bruges, 
and when the King's two Earls heard of it, they sent for more 
ships and more men, but Godwine escaped from them. Then 
there came on a great storm, and Godwine went back to 
Bruges. Then the King's fleet, which had done nothing at 
all, sailed back to London, very much like JEthelred's fleet in 
1009. Then King Edward said that he would send the fleet 
again with other Earls to command it — most likely the English 
sailors did not obey the French Earl Ralph at all willingly, nor 
Earl Odda either when he was taking part with the Frenchmen. 
But he was so long about it that all the sailors dispersed 
and went home. So Godwine could do just what he pleased : 



THE REIGN OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. 267 

he therefore set out again from Bruges, and sailed to the coast 
of Kent, and all along the coast of Sussex and Wight to Port- 
land, where he met Harold and Leofwine. In most places, 
especially along the coast of Sussex, where Godwine had large 
estates, people were very glad to see them, and came flocking 
to the coasts, saying that they would live and die with Earl 
Godwine. But in some places, chiefly in Wight, either people 
did not love the Earl so well, or else they were afraid of the 
King and his Frenchmen ; so Godwine had to plunder to get 
provisions. By thus sailing about, Godwine gradually got him 
a great fleet, till he thought he was strong enough to sail up to 
London. So he did on the 14th of September, the day of the 
Exaltation of the Holy Cross, and he found the King and the 
other Earls ready to meet him \vith fifty ships. Then Godwine 
sent to the King and asked that the Earldoms and everything 
that had been wrongfully taken from him and his sons should be 
given back to them. But the King refused, and tried to get an 
army together. But he could not get anybody to fight against 
Earl Godwine, for the men who came to him said, " Shall we 
Englishmen slay one another, only that these outlandish folk 
may the more reign over us ?" But Godwine's men were very 
wToth because the King refused to do justice, and they were 
very eager to fight against the King's men, but the Earl hin- 
dered them, though he had much trouble to do it. At last 
there came Bishop Stigand and others who wished to make 
peace, and they settled that hostages should be given on both 
sides, and that all things should be judged in a Meeting of the 
Wise Men. Wlien the Frenchmen heard that, they saw that 
there was no more hope f(x them ;. so they got them on their 
horses and rode off hither and thither to their castles that they 
had built. Earl Leofric let some of them pass through his 
land into Scotland to Macbeth the King of Scots, who received 
them gladly. And the two bad Bishops, Robert of Canterbury 
and Ulf of Dorchester, rode out of the East-gate of London, 
cutting about and killing as they went, till they got to the 
coast, and there they got into a crazy ship and sailed away, and 
never came back. Bishop William of London went away too, 
but I do not think that he killed anybody on the road. The next 
morning the Wise Men met, and Earl Godwine arose and made 



268 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

a speech — you know how well he could speak — and said that he 
and his sons were guiltless of all that had been laid to their 
charge. And all the Wise Men hearkened to him, and they 
decreed that Godwin e and his sons should have all their estates 
and honours back again. And they outlawed all the French- 
men, because it was they who had stirred up strife between the 
King and the Earls. Only they let a few stay, of whom the 
King was very fond, and who had done no mischief And they 
let Bishop William of London come back to his Bishoprick, 
because he had been a good Bishop and not like Robert and 
Ulf. So Earl Godwine and Gytha his wife and his sons Harold 
and Tostig and Gyrth and Leofwine, and all the men that were - 
with Godwine, were taken back into the King's full friendships 
and had again whatever they had had aforetime. So Godwine 
was again Earl of the West-Saxons, and Harold again Earl of 
the East- Angles. And Edith the Lady came back from her 
monastery, and had all her goods and honours again. And to 
Stigand the Bishop, who had been the first to make peace, was 
given the Archbishoprick of Canterbury, from which Robert 
the Frenchman had run away. But Swegen the Earl came not 
back ; for he had gone away out of Flanders already, because 
his heart smote him for that he had slain Beorn his cousin by 
craft, and he went to Jerusalem to pray at the tomb of our 
Lord, and he died on his way homeward and saw his native 
land no more. 

The next year, 1053, when the King was keeping the Epi- 
phany at Gloucester, men brought him the head of Rhys, the 
brother of Gruffydd the South- Welsh King. This Rhys had 
plundered and done much mischief; so the King and his Wise 
Men, at their Christmas meeting, ordered him to be put to 
death. It is strange that they found means to do it, and that 
so soon. But a much greater man died before the year was 
out, no other than the great Earl Godwine himself. At the 
Easter-feast he was dining with the King at Winchester, Avhen 
he suddenly dropped down in a fit. His sons carried him out, 
and four days afterwards he died, and was buried in the Old 
Minster. 

Now you may suppose that the Normans and all the French- 
men and foreigners of all sorts hated Earl Godwine while he 



THE REIGN OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. 269 

was alive, and loved to tell tales against him when he was 
dead. Besides that most unlikely story that he had a hand in 
the blinding and death of Alfred, they had all kinds of lies to 
tell of him and his sons. Now I have told you the real 
story of his death, as it is in the Chronicles, I will tell you 
the Norman story, and I think you will be able to see how^ 
such stories were made up by putting together pieces of dif- 
ferent tales. 



%\t Storg gf ^z ^^atfr of Sari ©obfoin^. 

WTien Edward the Saint was King of the English, he kept 
one year his Paschal feast in the royal city of Winchester, and 
Godwine the traitor, who w^as the Earl of the West-Saxons, 
was at meat with him. This is that Godwine who betrayed 
Alfred the ^theling to Harold the son of Cnut, and they 
slew his comrades, and put out his eyes that he died. 
Wherefore King Edward ever hated Godwine, because that he 
had slain his brother. Yet was Godwine so mighty that the 
King was constrained to let him dwell in the land, and be the 
chief of the people. And Godwine made the King marry 
Edith his daughter; yet the King loved neither her nor her 
father. Now as Godwine and the King sat at meat, the King's 
cup-bearer came near to pour out wine for the King. And the 
cup-bearer's foot slipped so that he was nigh unto falling, yet 
he saved himself with the other foot. Then said Godwine, 
*' So brother helpeth brother." Then said King Edward, " And 
I had a brother once who might have helped me ; but he is 
dead through the treason of Earl Godwine." Then spake 
Godwine to the King, " Many a time, O King, hast thou said 
that I betrayed and slew Alfred thy brother ; now I call God 
to witness that I betrayed him not neither slew him, neither 
had I any hand in the doings of them that slew him." Then 
took Godwine a morsel of bread from the table, and said, 
'' May this morsel of bread choke me if I had any hand in 
the bhnding or death of Alfred thy brother." Then Godwine 
swallowed the morsel of bread, but it stuck in his throat and 



270 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

choked him, so that he fell down and died. Then said King 
Edward, " Drag out this dog, and bury him in the highway, 
for he is not worthy to have the burial of a Christian man." 
Howbeit Harold and Tostig and his sons took his body and 
buried it in the Old Minster, the King not knowing thereof 
Thus God avenged the blood of Alfred upon Godwine the 
traitor. 



I think that by this time you know better than to believe stories 
of this kind. No doubt Earl Godwine had his faults like other 
men, and very likely he was ambitious and grasping and too 
fond of advancing his own family. But that he was a true 
lover of his country, and ruled his Earldom well, and defended 
England against strangers, no man can doubt. The English 
people wept for him as for their friend and father ; only they 
rejoiced that he had left a son to walk in Ms ways. For, when 
Godwine died, Harold his son was made Earl of the West- 
Saxons, and his Earldom of the East- Angles was again given 
to yElfgar the son of Leofric, who had held it while Harold 
was in banishment. Thus the four great Earls were Harold in 
Wessex, Leofric in Mercia, Siward in Northumberland, and 
^Ifgar in East-Anglia. Thus the house of Leofric gained by 
the death of Godwine, as now they had two Earldoms, while 
the house of Godwine had only one. Before Godwine's death 
it had been just the other way. 

From this time Earl Harold was the greatest man in the 
Kingdom, and he became so still more when the old Earls 
Leofric and Siward died. He and King Edward were very good 
friends, and Harold in fact governed the Kingdom. One can well 
believe that Godwine, a man who had made his own fortune, 
was rougher with the King, and did not know how to manage 
him so well as Harold did. Anyhow it is certain that, great 
as Godwine was, he never had things so completely in his own 
?iands as Harold had. King Edward after all was really a 
good man, only his fondness for Frenchmen made him quite 
unfit to govern the Kingdom. So it was well that he had a man 
like Harold to rule in his name. The King was very fond of 
hunting, which one would hardly have expected ; otherwise his 



THE REIGN OE EDV/ARD THE CONEESSOR. 271 

time was chiefly spent at his prayers, and in building churches 
and collecting relics. His great object was to build a great 
monastery in honour of Saint Peter at Westminster, which he 
did, but it was not finished till just before his death. This is the 
famous Abbey of Westminster, where our Kings are crowned 
and where so many of them are buried. The church has been 
rebuilt, so that there is nothing of Edward's w^ork left except 
the bases of a few pillars. But in the other buildings of the 
monastery, outside the church, there is a great deal of Edward's 
work still to be seen. Earl Harold too built a great church ; 
but I want you particularly to notice that, \yhile the King and 
almost everybody else was gone nearly mad after monks, Earl 
Harold did not favour them, but when he built his church he 
put secular priests into it. This was the minster of W^altham 
in Essex. The first man who built a church at Waltham was 
Tofig the Proud; at whose bride-ale Harthacnut died. Tofig had 
lands in Somersetshire as well as in Essex, and the story is that 
in Cnut's time, at the place which was then called Lutegars- 
bury and is now called Montacute, a cross was found at the top 
of the pointed hill from which the place is called Montacute, 
that is Mons acutus^ the sharp hill. This cross was thought to 
be miraculous and to be able to w^ork wonders. So they w^re 
minded to set it up in some great minster, and they put it in a 
cart drawn by oxen to take it away. So they named Canter- 
bury and Glastonbury and other great churches, but the oxen 
would not stir. At last, in despair, Tofig named Waltham, 
and then the oxen at once set out to go. Now at Waltham 
there was no town or village or church, but only a hunting- 
seat which Tofig had built in the wood. So Tofig built a 
church at W^altham, and put the cross in it, and set two priests 
to minister there, and certain men who had been healed by the 
power of the cross came and lived round about the church. 
And as they lived there and as pilgrims came to worship, 
so gradually there grew up the town w^hich is now called 
Waltham Abbey or Waltham Holy Cross. I do not expect 
you to believe all this story, but there is no doubt that Tofig 
built the first church at W^aitham, and that there was a cross 
in it which was thought to work miracles. Afterwards Tofig's 
son .'Ethelstan lost his estates, most likely for opposing King 



272 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

Edward's election. His lands were given to Earl Elarold, and 
Harold pulled down Tofig's small church and built a much larger 
and grander one, and instead of Tofig's two priests he founded 
a Dean and twelve Canons. Now I want you to take notice 
that Earl Harold, in foundmg this church, took great care that 
there should be some one in his College able to teach ; so he 
made the "Childmaster" be one of the chief among the Canons, 
and he sent to Germany for one Adelhard of Liittich, which 
in French is called Liege, who, under the great Emperor Henry 
the Third, had reformed many churches in Germany. This 
Adelhard he made Childmaster at Waltham. For though 
Harold took care that the Frenchmen should never again have 
power in England, he had no dislike to foreigners as such. 
But the men whom he brought from foreign parts were all 
from Lorraine or the Netherlands, where people spoke the 
Low-Dutch tongue, which was then not very different from 
English. I d-O not think you will find any Frenchmen pro- 
moted after Godwine's return, while, besides Adelhard, several 
men from Lorraine got Bishopricks, which they could hardly 
have done against Harold's will. Harold himself visited 
foreign countries more than once. He made the pilgrimage 
to Rome, like Cnut and many other great men, and on his 
way he travelled in France, on purpose to see what was 
going on and to know the state of Europe thoroughly. 
Harold's church at Waltham was not finished and hallowed 
till 1060, and the foundation was not fully completed till 
1062. But I mention it here, because no doubt he began 
it long before, and also because all these things help to show 
how great a man our last true English King really was, at 
once how wise and how bountiful, and how anxious for every- 
thing which could be for the good of his country. I do 
not mean to say a word against King Edward and his Abbey 
of Westminster, but after all it was only a pious fancy. But 
Earl Harold's College at Waltham, his choice of secular 
priests, his care to make his foundation really useful, to get fit 
men even from foreign countries, show that he was not only lavish 
of gifts to the Church, like so many others, but that he was 
really wise and thoughtful and anxious to improve himself and 
his countrymen in every way. Of course the Normans tell 



THE REIGN OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. 273 

every sort of lie of him as well as of his father, but if you go 
to the accounts of those who really knew him, you will see 
that Earl Harold was really one of the greatest and best rulers 
that England ever had. 

I mentioned a little time back that the King of Scots now 
was Macbeth, whose name is very famous, because Shakespere 
made a play about him. In 1031 we find that Macbeth vv^as 
ari under-King in Scotland, and that he did homage to Cnut 
along with the head King Malcolm. . I suspect that Macbeth 
vv^as not so black as he is painted. There are no Scottish 
writers or documents of the time, so we really know next to 
nothing of Scottish affairs. But Scottish tradition says that 
Macbeth ruled very well and that Scotland was better off under 
him than under any other King for a long time before or 
afterwards. It is also certain that he had a claim to the 
Scottish crown, and it is all a false tale that he invited 
Duncan to his castle, and killed him there treacherously by 
the counsel of his wife. The truth seems to be that there 
was a battle between Macbeth's party and Duncan's party, 
and that Duncan was beaten and ran away, and was pursued 
and killed. Also Duncan, the grandson of Malcolm, instead 
of being an old man, was quite young ; and as for Mac- 
beth's wife, Gruach, we really know nothing about her except 
her gifts to certain churches. Thus you see how history gets 
perverted. So Macbeth became King of Scots, and most 
likely he had as good a right to the crown as anybody else, 
except that he may have taken it without the leave of his 
Lord the King of the English. I suppose this was so, or I do 
not see why King Edward should have been anxious to turn 
him out, or why Harold should have approved of the ex- 
pedition against him, as I suppose he did. In the year 1050 
Macbeth is said to have spent a great deal of money at Rome, 
scattering it about among different people. This looks very 
much as if he knew that some mischief was brewing, and so 
wanted to get the Pope on his side. But at any rate^ in 1054, 
the year after Godwine's death, now that things were quiet in 
England, men began to think of what was going on in Scotland, 
Earl Si ward, the great Earl of the Northumbrians, was very 
anxious to drive Macbeth out, perhaps all the more because 

T 



274 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

Duncan had married a kinswoman of his. So he got leave of 
the King, and went with a great host by land and sea to invade 
Scotland. Macbeth met them in battle, and he had on his 
side the Normans who had taken refuge with him. It was a 
very hard fight ; many thousands of the Scots were killed, and, 
we are told, all the Normans. But many of Siward's Danes 
and Englishmen were killed too, especially of his own house- 
carls, and among them his own son Osbeorn and his sister's 
son Siward.^ However Siward got the victory and carried off 
such plunder as no man had ever seen before. Malcolm the 
son of Duncan was then proclaimed King of Scots. According 
to Shakespere Macbeth was killed in this battle, but this was 
not so. There was war for some years between Malcolm and 
Macbeth, and, after Macbeth's death, between Malcolm and 
one Lulach, who succeeded Macbeth. But in the end Malcolm 
got all the Kingdom of Scotland. You will often hear of this 
King Malcolm again. The next year, 1055, Earl Siward died. 
A story is told that, when he knew that he was dying, he felt 
ashamed that he was dying quietly in his bed, " like a cow," 
as he said, instead of dying in battle. So he sent for his 
armour and put it on, so that, as he could not die in battle, 
he might at least die as if he were ready for battle. You see 
how fierce and fond of fighting men were in those days, and 
how much more so among the Danes in Northumberland 
than they were in the southern parts of England. We do 
not hear any such stories of Godwine or Leofric, though 
Godwine at least could fight well enough when fighting was 
wanted. Siward himself had got his Earldom by kilfing the 
former Earl Eadwulf, so that he was himself no better than 
Macbeth. Well, he now died- and was buried in the minster 
at Galmanho in the suburbs of York, which he had himself 
built and hallowed to God and Saint Olaf This is Olaf King 
of the Northmen, who had much fighting with our King Cnut. 
He had also much trouble with his own people ; for many 
men in Norway were still heathens, and Olaf was a zealous 
Christian, just like the other Olaf Tryggvesson, and, just like 
Olaf Tryggvesson too, he tried to make all his people Chris- 

^ Shakespere is wrong when he makes young Siward the son of the old 
Earl. 



THE REIGN OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. 275 

tians like himself, not quietly, as our Kings had done, but by 
force. So many of the Northmen would not submit, and they 
slew King Olaf in battle. But for his zeal he was called a 
saint and a martyr, and he became a favourite saint among 
the Danes in England. So Earl Si ward dedicated his church 
to him. Out of that church grew the famous Abbey of Saint 
Mary at York, of which some very beautiful ruins are still to 
be seen, and there is also a parish church called Saint Olave's. 
When Siward was dead, his Earldom was given to Tostig the 
son of Godwine and brother of Harold. Earldoms, you know, 
were not hereditary; the King and the Wise Men could give 
them to whom they pleased. But, just as with the Kingdom, 
the son of the last Earl was more likely to be appointed than 
any one else, if he was at all fit for the place. But Siward's 
eldest son Osbeorn had, as you have heard, just been killed, 
and his other son Waltheof, of whom you will often hear again, 
was still quite young. Tostig therefore got the Earldom ; so 
there were now again two Earldoms in the house of Godwine. 
There were two also in the house of Leofric. Harold and 
his brother Tostig, Leofric and his son ^Ifgar, had all England 
among them. 

The same year that Siward went into Scotland, Osgod Clapa 
died suddenly in his bed. And the same year too Bishop 
Ealdred was sent on an embassy into Germany to the Emperor 
Henry the Third. One object of the embassy was to get the 
Emperor to send into Hungary for the ^theling Edward the son 
of Edmund Ironside. You will remember how he was sent 
into Hungary when he was a babe, with his brother Edmund. 
Edmund was dead, but Edward was still living in Hungary. 
He had married Agatha, a niece of the Emperor Henry the 
Second, the last of the Saxon Emperors, and he had three 
children, Edgar, Margaret, and Christina. You will hear of 
them again ; but I want you to mark now that the boy had an 
English name, and the girls Greek names. As his uncle King 
Edward had no children, this ^theling Edward and his children 
were the only people left in the royal family ; so it was natural 
to send for them, so that the ^Etheling or his son might succeed 
to the crown whenever King Edward died. The King was now 
about fifty-two years old and the ^theling about thirty-nine. 

T 2 



276 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

Bishop Ealdred was a whole year away on his embassy. He 
spent the time at Koln, which in French is called Cologne, 
where he was received with great honours both by the Emperor 
and by Hermann the Archbishop of Koln. The English and 
the Germans were at this time very good friends, as they always 
ought to be, and the men of Koln had much trade with London. 
The old Low-Dutch or Saxon tongue was still spoken in that 
part of Germany, so that Ealdred no doubt felt himself almost 
at home. 

I have told you of the death of Earl Siward in 1055. The 
same year, the King and his Wise Men, in a meeting at London, 
outlawed Earl ^Ifgar. He was charged with treason ; but 
some say that he was not guilty. However he soon made him- 
self guilty, if he was not so before. For he went over to Ireland 
and got him eighteen pirate-ships, no doubt from among the 
Danes on the east coast of Ireland. So he sailed back and 
made a league with King Gruffydd in Wales, and they agreed 
to make war upon King Edward. So ^Ifgar and Gruffydd 
and their host marched into Herefordshire and began to harry 
the land. Now you may remember that Ralph the Frenchman, 
the King's sister's son, was Earl of that shire. So he got 
together the men of his shire, and also some Normans and 
other Frenchmen whom he had with him. Now you know 
that in those days Englishmen never fought on horseback. 
The great men and the housecarls rode to the field of battle, 
but when the fighting was to begin, they got down and fought 
on foot like the others with their great axes. But in Nor- 
mandy, and in France generally, all who were gentlemen 
fought on horseback, with swords and long spears. Ralph 
thought that the way of his own country was the best, and 
he insisted on his Englishmen fighting in the French way on 
horseback. This was not the way to make them fight well, 
but at any rate he might have set them a good example him- 
self and have shown them how to fight after his own fashion. 
But instead of this, when they came near to the army of 
Gruffydd, about two miles from Hereford, Earl Ralph was the 
first to turn his bridle and ride off, and his Frenchmen seem 
to have followed him. So when the English were forsaken in 
this way, they very naturally rode away too, and the enemy 



THE REIGN OF EDV/ARD THE CONFESSOR, 277 

had the victory and killed about five hundred men. Then 
Gruffydd and ^Ifgar marched to the city of Hereford, and 
they came to Saint ^thelberht's minster — you remember 
Saint JEthelberht who was killed by Offa — and killed seven of 
the Canons who tried to keep the great door against them. 
They killed several other men, and burned the church and the 
town, and went off with much spoil and many captives. When 
this kind of work was going on, it was plain that quite another 
sort of captain from Ralph the P^enchman v/as needed. So 
the King ordered an army to be gathered from all England at 
Gloucester, and he gave the command of it to Earl Harold. 
Neither Gloucester nor Hereford was in Harold's o^vn Earldom, 
but Earl Leofric was getting old, and perhaps it would hardly 
have done to send him to fight against his own son. So 
Earl Harold set to work like a man, and followed after Gruffydd 
and ^Ifgar and drove them out of Herefordshire and pitched 
his camp in Grufifydd's own country. Now Gruffydd and 
^Ifgar knew very well mth what kind of man they had now to 
deal, so they were afraid to fight against Earl Harold, and fled 
into South-Wales. Harold then divided his army into two 
parts. One part he sent into South- Wales to watch Gruffydd 
and ^Ifgar, and, if need be, to fight against them. With the 
rest he himself went to Hereford, and dug a ditch and built a 
wall round the city, that it might not be taken again so easily. 
Meanwhile messages were going to and fro, and at last peace 
was made at Billingsley in Shropshire. You will fimd that Earl 
Harold, though so valiant in war, v/as always ready, sometimes 
too ready, to make peace. One is surprised to hear that 
^Ifgar, after all that he had done, was allowed to go to the 
King and get back his Earldom. ^ But no doubt his father 
Leofric pleaded hard for him, and Harold may well have 
remembered that he had himself been in banishment, and that 
he had himself used more violence than was needed when he 
landed at Porlock. In any case he had not done anything 
like what ^Ifgar had done ; but we can w^ell believe that he 
might not think it right to press very hardly upon him. 

Early in the next year, 1056, died yEthelstan Bishop of 
Hereford. He it was who had built the minster which ^Ifgar 
and Gruffydd had burned. He had been blind for thirteen 



J 



278 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

years before he died, and one Tremerin, a Welsh Bishop, had 
acted for him all that time. In his stead Leofgar, a chaplain of 
Earl Harold's, was made Bishop, but he held the see not quite 
twelve weeks. For there was a Welsh war again, and the 
new Bishop went out to fight, but King Grufifydd met them 
at Cleobury and there slew the Bishop and some of his clerks, 
and ^Ifnoth the Sheriff. The English fared very badly along 
the border all the days of Earl Ralph. So Earl Harold and 
Earl Leofric and Bishop Ealdred came, and they again made 
peace with Gruffydd and he swore to be a faithful under- King 
to King Edward. The same year Earl Odda or ^thelwine, 
who had become a monk, died in his own monastery which he 
had built at Deerhurst, and was buried at Pershore. 

The next year, 1057, the ^theling Edward and his children 
came to England. You will remember that Bishop Ealdred 
had gone to the Emperor three years before to see about this 
matter, and now the ^theling actually came home. But he 
never saw his uncle the King; for, soon after he came to 
England, he died in London and was buried in Saint Paul's 
minster. Through his death the royal family was almost ex- 
tinct j there was no male descendant left except young Edgar 
the ^theling's son. There were also Edgar's sisters, and there 
must have been people both at home and abroad who were 
descended from various Kings' daughters. But it had never 
been the custom in England to elect a Queen — Sexburh in 
Wessex, long before, is the only case at all like it — nor were 
those who were connected with the royal house only in the 
female line held to have any claim on the crown. And you 
will remember that even a King's son or brother had no 
absolute right to succeed ; he was simply to be preferred to 
anybody else, if he was at all fit. And again, do not forget 
that young Edgar was not, according to our modern notions, 
the heir of his great-uncle King Edward. Edgar was the 
grandson of the King's elder brother Edmund Ironside, so 
that, as the law now stands, Edward would have been the heir 
of Edgar, not Edgar the heir of Edward. As the law and 
custom of England then stood, if, when King Edward died, 
young Edgar had been a grown man and at all fit to reign, 
it would have been the regular thing to choose him rather 



THE REIGN OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. 279 

than any one else. But he had no right to the crown beyond 
this. 

This same year Earl Leofric died, and was buried at Coven- 
try. He was a great builder of churches and monasteries, 
both he and his wife Godgifu, and the minster of Coventr}Mvas 
. one of their building. Of course most of their buildings have 
been rebuilt, but in the church of Stow in Lincolnshire there 
is still some work of Earl Leofric's time. Coventry Cathedral 
is quite gone, having been pulled down in Henry the Eighth's 
time. Godgifu, Leofric's wife, is the Lady Godiva of whom a 
silly story is told how she begged her husband to let off the 
people of Coventry from a certain tax, which he said he would 
do only if she would ride naked through the city. So the 
Lady gave orders that all people should shut up their windows 
and doors, and she rode naked through the town and delivered 
them from the tax. Now all people did as the Lady bade them, 
and shut up their windows, save one Tom, called Peeping 
Tom, w^ho looked out and was struck blind. This is not 
one of the real old legends, w^hich, though not true, are 
still for many reasons worth telling. It is a mere silly tale, 
which was not heard of till long after Leofric's time. And it 
really makes one almost angry to think how many people know 
such a fooHsh tale as this who never heard anything besides 
about the great Earl Leofric and his wife. And it is some com- 
fort to think that, if there was a Peeping Tom of Coventry at 
this time, he must have been one of King Edward's Frenchmen, 
for Englishmen, as you know by this time, did not use Scrip- 
ture names. Leofric was succeeded in his Earldom by his son 
^Ifgar. Godgifu outlived her husband and her son and some 
of her grandchildren, and died some years after the coming in 
of William the Norman. In this same year also died Ralph 
the French Earl and was buried at Peterborough. Hereford- 
shire was so important a part of the country, as being so close 
on the Welsh border, and the city of Hereford, now Harold 
had strengthened it, was so important a frontier post, that it was 
thought that no one but the first man in England could be trusted 
with it. So Hereford and all Herefordshire became part of the 
Earldom of Harold. Ralph left a little son named Harold, 
perhaps a godson of the great Earl, but he did not do anything 



28o OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

famous, though the castle and parish of Ewias Harold in Here- 
fordshire were called after him. And great changes were made 
in the East of England. ^Ifgar's Earldom of the East-Angles, 
or at any rate Norfolk and Suffolk, and most likely Bedford and 
Cambridgeshire, was given to Harold's brother Gyrth, who after- 
wards had Oxfordshire also. And Essex, Kent, and the other 
shires about London were made into an Earldom for the other 
brother Leofric. Thus the sons of Godwine had now all England 
in their hands, except the part of Mercia which belonged to 
^Ifgar. And by these new divisions Harold and his brothers 
had not only all Wessex, but all the country which had been 
West-Saxon in quite early times before the Mercian Kings 
began to conquer. And I have little doubt that from about 
this time, now that the -^theling was dead, men began to think 
that, when King Edward should die, it would be the right thing 
to choose Earl Harold as King in his stead. 

The next year, 1058, the new Earl of the Mercians was out- 
lawed again, but he came back to his Earldom by force, by the 
help of his old friend King Gruff3^dd and of some Norwegian 
ships, seemingly Wikings who were cruising about and who 
now entered his service. I suppose it was about this time that 
^Elfgar gave Gruffydd his daughter Ealdgyth in marriage. We 
shall hear of her again. There is something very strange in 
all these doings of ^Ifgar and Gruffydd, and it shows how 
strong the power of the house of Leofric must have been in 
Mercia, for ^Ifgar to be able thus to get his Earldom back 
again twice. This last time we hear nothing of Harold ; it has 
sometimes come into my head that it must have been this year 
that he went on his pilgrimage to Rome, so that ^Ifgar and 
Gruffydd were better able to do as they pleased while he was 
away. And, however this may be, it was not Harold's wish 
or policy for many reasons to press hard at any time on the 
great rival house. 

For several years there is very little to tell. Things seem 
to have been more quiet than usual, and we hear of hardly 
anything besides appointments to Bishopricks and matters of 
that kind. In 1058, the year of ^Ifgar's second outlawry and 
return. Bishop Ealdred hallowed the minster at Gloucester and 
made one Wulfstan Abbot of it. This is not Saint Wulfstan 



THE REIGN OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. 281 

who was afterwards so famous and of whom you will hear 
something very soon. When Ealdred had done this, he went 
on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, a thing which no English Bishop 
had ever done before. It must have been soon after he came 
back, in 1060, that Cynesige Archbishop of York died and 
Ealdred succeeded him. The consecration of Earl Harold's 
minster at Waltham, which, I told you, happened in 1060, must 
have been one of Cynesige's last public acts. Ealdred at first 
kept his Bishoprick of Worcester with the Archbishoprick, which 
was not a right thing, but which several Archbishops of York 
had done before him. In 1061 he went to Rome to get his 
pallium from Pope Nicolas, . and with him went Earl Tostig 
and his wife Judith and several other people as pilgrims. 
With them also went two men who had been appointed to 
Bishopricks the year before, namely AValter of Hereford and 
Gisa of Wells. They went to be consecrated by the Pope, 
because there was some doubt whether Stigand was a lawful 
Archbishop according to the canons of the Church. He had 
been appointed during the lifetime of Robert the Norman 
Archbishop, who ran away as you v*ill remember. You will 
also remember that Robert had been deposed by the King and 
people of England in the great meeting which restored Earl 
Godwine in 1052. And this Englishmen thought quite enough 
to deprive him of his See, but as Robert had never been 
deposed by the Pope or by any ecclesiastical Council, Stigand 
was a long time without his pallium, till at last he got it, 
most likely by Earl Harold's influence on his pilgrimage, 
from Pope Benedict. But Benedict was not looked upon 
as a lawful Pope ; so this only made matters worse. People 
thought less of questions of this sort in England than per- 
haps anywhere else in the West ; so that it is not wonderful 
to find that not only the King's Frenchmen, but other 
foreigners, made difficulties about things which very few 
Englishmen would have thought of at all. Walter and Gisa 
were not Frenchmen ; they came from that part of Lotharingia 
which is now in the Kingdom of Belgium, and they no 
doubt spoke Low-Dutch. Godwine and Harold had promoted 
several men from those parts. But they, as well as the French- 
men, seemed afraid to acknowledge Stigand as Archbishop. 



282 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

And when the thing was once talked of, Enghshmen began 
to be afraid also. Saint Wulfstan chose to be consecrated by 
his old friend Ealdred, and not by his proper metropolitan 
Stigand, and we have seen that Earl Harold himself had 
had his minster at Waltham hallowed by Cynesige and not 
by Stigand. Bishop Gisa, of whom I just now spoke, is a 
memorable man in the history of our church of Wells. He 
had a quarrel with Earl Harold about the lordships of Banwell 
and Congresbury and about some other property belonging to 
the late Bishop Duduc, which Gisa said belonged to the see, but 
which it seems most likely was Duduc's private property which 
had come to Harold as Earl.^ There seems to have been a 
good deal of trouble about the matter, but in the end Gisa 
and Harold were made friends. I tell you this, because this 
matter about Gisa has grown into a story of Harold robbing 
the church of Wells of all its estates and driving out the 
Canons to beg their bread, for all which there is no authority 
at all. This Bishop Gisa did another thing at Wells, which 
you should know of, but which I think must have happened a 
good while after this time. The Canons had before this lived 
each man in his own house, as they do now, and it is even 
possible that some of them were married. Of this Gisa 
did not approve ; so he made his Canons live together after 
the custom of Lotharingia, which had been drawn up in a set 
of rules long before by Chrodegang Bishop of Metz. He built 
them a cloister and a dorter or common sleeping-room, and 
other common buildings. It does not seem that he actually 
made them take vows as monks ; but this was making them 
live somewhat more in the way of monks, and we can fancy 
that his object was in the end to have monks instead of 
Canons at Wells, as had been done in so many other churches. 
But this never happened ; because after the Conquest the next 
Bishop altered matters in quite another way. 

I have been led astray to talk about Bishop Gisa and our 
own church of Wells till I have almost forgotten about Arch- 

1 Duduc, like Gisa, was a foreigner, a Saxon, who had been made 
Bishop in Cnut's time. He would therefore most likely have no heirs in 
England, so that any private property of his would on his death escheat^ 
as it is called, to the King or perhaps to the Earl. 



THE REIGN OE EDWARD THE CONEESSOR. 283 

bishop Ealdred going to Rome for his palHum. You will re- 
member that Earl Tostig and several other people had gone with 
him. When they got to Rome, Pope Nicolas was quite ready 
to consecrate Walter and Gisa, but he did not think it right 
that Ealdred should keep the Bishoprick of Worcester as well 
as his Archbishoprick. So, instead of Ealdred's getting the 
palhum, the Pope and his council professed to deprive him of 
his Bishoprick of Worcester also and to send him home alto- 
gether empty. So he and Earl Tostig and the two neVly-made 
Bishops turned about to go home again. But when they had 
got a little way from Rome, they were set upon by robbers who 
stripped them of all that they had, leaving them only their 
clothes. So they went again to the Pope and Earl Tostig spoke 
out like a stout Englishman. It was all very well for the Pope 
to be so fierce to people who came from a long w^ay off, when 
nobody minded at all about him close under the walls of 
Rome. Here they all were, robbed of everything they had, and 
he was not at all sure that the Pope might not have had some- 
thing to do with the robbery. If strangers and pilgrims were 
treated in this way when they came to Rome, the Pope could 
not expect that they would care much about his excommuni- 
cations when they got to their own countries. At any rate he 
knew what he would do himself. If the Pope did not cause 
everything that had been taken away to be made good to them, 
as soon as he got back to England, he, Earl Tostig, would 
tell the King and the whole English people how they had been 
treated, and he would take care that not a penny of English 
money was paid to the Pope any more. When Pope Nicolas 
heard this, he began to be afraid, and he not only made good 
all that Tostig and Ealdred and the other Englishmen had lost, 
but he gave Ealdred the pallium and said that he might 
keep the Archbishoprick, only he must give up the Bishoprick 
of Worcester. So in the next year, after Pope Nicolas was 
dead, the next Pope, Alexander the Second, sent two Legates 
into England, who had to settle some matters about the 
King's new Abbey of W^estminster and also about appointing 
a successor to Ealdred in the see of Worcester. Ealdred 
himself seems to have had a good deal to do with choosing 
his successor, and he certainly made a very good choice. For 



284 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

he chose Wulfstan who was afterwards called Saint Wulfstan, 
who was at this time Prior of his cathedral church at Wor- 
cester. You will often hear of him again. He was a very 
holy man and a great preacher, and it is said that he used 
to go about the country round Worcester and baptize the 
children whom the parish priests would not baptize unless their 
parents paid them a fee. But perhaps this is only one of the 
stories which the monks so often got up against the secular 
clergy. At any rate there is no doubt as to Wulfstan's good- 
ness and as to the great honour in which he was held by 
everybody at the time. He was much reverenced by Earl 
Leofric and his wife Godgifu, and he was a special friend of 
Earl Harold's, who would go many miles out of his way to 
talk to him and ask for his prayers. So when the King and 
his Wise Men met at Gloucester, and were told that the 
clergy and people of Worcester all wished to have Prior 
Wulfstan for their Bishop, everybody spoke in his favour. 
The Pope's Legates and the two Archbishops and Earl Harold 
and Earl ^Ifgar all spoke for him. Nobody in short said 
anything against it except Wulfstan himself, who, when he 
was sent for and was brought before the Wise Men, said that 
he would rather have his head cut off than be made a 
Bishop. And indeed he held out for some months before he 
would take the Bishoprick, and at last he was only persuaded 
by a holy hermit, who had lived by himself for forty years, 
who told him that it was his duty to do what everybody 
wished him to do. So at last Wulfstan became Bishop of 
Worcester, but he would not be consecrated by Stigand 
because, as I said, he was held not to be Archbishop according 
to the law of the Church. ,But as he was Archbishop by 
law, Wulfstan made profession of obedience to him, but he 
went to York to be consecrated by Archbishop Ealdred, and 
Archbishop Ealdred had to declare that he claimed no sort of 
authority over Wulfstan or over the church of Worcester. 

I have now not much to tell you for some time except that 
in 1 06 1, while Tostig and Ealdred were away, Malcolm King 
of Scots, though he had become Tostig's sworn brother, in- 
vaded and harried Northumberland and gave special offence 
by not sparing Saint Cuthbert's Holy Isle of Lindesfarne. 



THE REIGN OF EDV/ARD THE CONFESSOR. 285 

Now I said before that it was most likely while Earl Harold 
was away on his pilgrimage that yElfgar came back by force ; 
so it seems to have been dangerous for an English Earl to go 
away so far from his Earldom, especially under a King like 
Edward, when the Earls were the real rulers of the countr)^ 
The next thing that I have to tell you is that in 1062, the year 
in which Wulfstan became Bishop, Earl Harold quite finished 
his College at Waltham. The church, you will remember, was 
hallowed in 1060. He now got the King's charter, which 
confirmed all his gifts, and he settled all the details about the 
incomes, rights, and duties of the different people belonging 
to the College. He had time to settle such things in 1062 ; 
in 1063 he had quite other matters to look to. For by this 
time Gruffydd's disturbances had got beyond all bearing, and 
it was now determined really to put a stop to everything of the 
kind. This must have been settled at the Christmas meeting 
of the Wise Men, which was held as usual at Gloucester. So 
Earl Harold marched straight to Rhuddlan, where Gruffydd had 
a palace \ but Gruftydd had just time to get away in a ship. 
Of course what was meant by this sudden march in the winter 
w^as to seize Gruffydd himself, for winter was not a tim.e to 
make war in such a country as Wales. So when Gruffydd had 
thus got away. Earl Harold burned his palace at Rhuddlan and 
his ships, and went back again to Gloucester. It was no doubt 
settled to carry on the war decisively when the summer cam.e. 
So when all things were ready and it was now May, Earl 
Harold set out from Bristol with a fleet, and his brother Earl 
Tostig set forth with a land-force, and Harold sailed round 
Wales till he met his brother, and then the two set to work 
manfully and harried the whole land. Earl Harold had learned 
something in his former war with the Welsh, and he saw that 
the English way of fighting did not always do in a Welsh war. 
The English housecarls with their heavy coats of mail and 
their great axes were as good soldiers as could be in a pitched 
battle ; but the Welsh took care there never should be any 
pitched battles, and the housecarls were not at all suited to 
chase the nimble and light-armed Welsh among the hills and 
dales of Wales. So Earl Harold made his men lay aside their 
heavy harness and weapons and learn to fight in the Welsh- 



286 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN, 

men's own way. So he was able to go through the whole land, 
beating them everywhere, till at last the Welsh gave in, and 
deposed their King Gruffydd and gave hostages and swore 
oaths and promised to pay tribute. And in the month of 
August Gruffydd was killed by his own people, because, we 
are told, of the war which he had waged with Earl Harold. 
I dare say that at first all the Welsh people were quite as 
anxious for war with the English as Gruffydd himself, but no 
doubt they were by this time quite tired of Earl Harold's 
way of making war, which you see was rather different from 
Ralph's. Gruffydd was the last Welsh King of any great 
power or who reigned over all Wales. Those who killed 
him brought his head and the beak of his ship to Earl 
Harold, who sent them on to King Edward. The King then 
gave the Welsh land to the brothers of Gruffydd, whom the 
Chronicles call Blethgent and Rigwatla, but whose real names 
seem to have been Bleddyn and Rhiwallon. The new princes 
gave hostages and swore oaths both to the King and to Earl 
Harold, that they would be faithful by land and sea and do 
and pay all that the Welsh land had ever done and paid to 
any English King. 

This complete conquest of Wales, by which the country was 
brought more thoroughly into subjection than it had ever 
been since Edgar's time, was one of Earl Harold's great ex- 
ploits. People remembered them long after, even when they 
had been long taught to look upon Harold as an usurper and 
a wicked king altogether. There is a great deal about 
Harold's war with Gruffydd in two writers who lived in the 
time of Henry the Second, John of Salisbury and Giraldus 
Cambrensis. They both tell us how thoroughly Harold did 
his work, and John of Salisbury picks out this story to show 
the difference between a good general and a bad one, and he 
wishes that there were men in his own time to guard the 
marches as Harold did. Giraldus, who was born in Wales and 
who knew the country v/ell, says that at every place where 
Harold had fought with the Welsh he set up a stone with the 
writing on it, " Here Harold conquered." You may be sure 
that these great successes endeared him still more both to the 
King and to the people. No doubt by this time he was thinking 



THE REIGN OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. 287 

that he might very Hkely be chosen King whenever Edward 
died. Indeed one or two things look as if he had been made 
something more than a common Earl, even while King Edward 
was alive. For Florence in one place calls him Siihreguhis or 
under-King^ a name which is often given to the Princes of 
Wales, but which I do not remember to have seen given to any 
other Earl since Alderman ^thelred of Mercia in the days of 
Edward the Elder. And it is worth notice that the Welsh 
Princes sw^ore oaths to Earl Harold as well as to King Edward, 
which looks very much as if people expected that Harold 
would be King after Edward. 

Under the year 1064 the Chronicles tell us nothing, but 
Florence puts the death of Gruffydd and the final submission 
of Wales in that year instead of in 1063.^ It was perhaps 
about this time that a thing happened which is told -with 
such great differences that it is very hard to get at the exact 
truth, though it seems most likely that something of the kind 
really did happen. I mean the oath which Earl Harold is 
said to have taken to Duke William to be his man and to 
receive him as King whenever King Edward should die. The 
Norman ^vriters all assert this very strongly, and it was, 
according to them, the chief ground on which William 
justified his attack on England. But our EngHsh writers say 
nothing whatever about it. But I cannot help thinking 
that their saying nothing about it rather proves that some- 
thing of the kind did happen. For most of the Norman 
lies about Godwine and Harold we can easily answer. The 
English wTiters either contradict them in so many words or 
else give an account which show^s that they cannot be true. 
But of this matter of Harold's oath they say nothing at all ; 
w^hereas, if the Norman story had been a mere lie from begin- 
ning to end, w'.e may be sure that they would have been glad 
to have been able to say so. We know also that Harold did 
visit France and Rome and other parts of Europe, so that it is 
very likely that he visited Normandy also. So on the whole 
I think it is most likely that Harold did at some time make 
some kind of oath to William, as I think it is most likely 

1 The two Welsh Chronicles put the death of Gruffydd, one in 1063, the 
other in 1 06 1. 



288 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

that Edward did at some time make some kind of promise 
to William. If both stories had been mere inventions ot 
William's, we should surely find Harold's contradiction in some 
shape or other. But, if you ask me for time, place, and cir- 
cumstance, I can only say once more that the English writers 
say nothing about it, and that the Norman writers contradict 
one another in such a way that I can tell you hardly anything 
for certain. But I think it is most likely that Harold was 
sailing in the Channel, either mei'ely for pleasure or on a 
voyage somewhere, and that he was driven by bad weather on 
the coast in the dominions of Guy Count of Ponthieu. Now 
it is worth notice that in many places there has been a very 
strange and wicked feeling about shipwrecks and persons cast 
on shore by shipwreck, some traces of which exist even now. 
In Cornwall, not so very long ago, people used to live by 
wrecking, that is by plundering shipwrecked vessels, and 
sometimes, I am afraid, even murdering any people who might 
be on board. Others would put out false lights so as to cause 
ships to be wrecked, and some would even pray to God for 
good shipwrecks. I fancy that sometimes people committed 
crimes of this sort who w^ould not have robbed or murdered in 
any other case \ they had a kind of notion that neither the laws 
of the land nor the common laws of right and wrong had any- 
thing to do with things at sea. They seem to have fancied that 
shipwrecked things and people were forsaken of God, and given 
over into their hands, so that they might do what they pleased 
with them. Our law is that anything that is thrown ashore by 
the sea, and of which the owner cannot be found, belongs to 
the King, or, by his grant, to the lord of the manor. And 
in early times it would even seem that the King or other lord 
had a right to all wrecks, even though the owner was known : 
still, though this was very harsh and unjust, it gave no power 
to hurt any human being who might be cast on shore. But 
in the times of which I am writing the lords of some coasts 
pretended a right of wreck over persons as well as over things, 
so that, if any man w^as shipwrecked, instead of being helped 
in any way, he was clapped in prison till he paid a ransom. 
Count Guy claimed this as the law of his county of Ponthieu ; 
so when the great Earl of the West-Saxons, the brother-in- 



THE RETGN OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. 289 

law of the King of the Enghsh, was v^Tecked on his shore, 
Guy clapped him in prison, and demanded a ransom. But 
Guy could not have everything his own way; for he was a 
vassal of William Duke of the Normans. So Earl Harold 
contrived to send a message to Duke William, teUing him of 
the wrong that his vassal had done to him. We have no 
reason to doubt that William would be really anxious to redress 
a wrong of this sort done by any one who was at all under his 
control. At the same time, as he had doubtless, long before 
this, begun to aim at the English crown, we may be quite sure 
that he would be very glad of the opportunity of laying Earl 
Harold under an obligation to him, perhaps of getting him per- 
sonally into his power. So Duke William sent to Count Guy, 
and by threats and promises made him give up his prisoner. 
He then received Earl Harold at his court with all honour, his 
Duchess Matilda and every one joining to pay all respect to so 
illustrious a guest. It is even said that he persuaded Harold 
to accompany him in a campaign against Conan Count of the 
Bretons, in which Harold greatly distinguished himself, espe- 
cially by pulling out and saving many of the Normans when 
they were likely to be swept away by the river Coesnon which 
divides Normandy and Britanny, close by Saint Michael's 
Mount. You may see this in the Bayeux Tapestry, where 
Harold is shown lifting up two Normans at once. The Eng- 
lish generally were taller and stronger men than the Normans, 
and Earl Harold is spoken of as being the tallest and strongest, 
as well as the wisest and bravest, man among them. As a 
general rule, in those times, a man's body was of almost as 
much account as his mind. It was not indeed always so, for 
you will remember that both Edgar and Cnut were small men ; 
but a man who, like Harold or Edmund Ironside, was vigorous 
in body as well as in spirit, was thought much more of on 
iccount of it. Earl Harold then helped Duke William in his 
war against the Bretons ; perhaps he liked the notion of fighting 
the Welsh on both sides of the Channel. 

After this Breton war, William " gave arms " to Harold, 
making him a knight after the fashion of the Normans. And 
now it was, we are told, that Harold swore to be Duke William's 
man, and to receive him as King w^ien King Edward died, and 

u 



290 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN, 

meanwhile to give him up the castle of Dover, and to marry 
one of Duke William's daughters, and to give a sister of his own 
to marry one of Duke William's lords. Earl Harold, we are told, 
swore to all this, and left his young brother Wulfnoth as a hostage, 
and then went home. But the whole thing is told with such 
contradictions that one hardly knows what to believe. On the 
whole, putting everything together, I am inclined to think that 
what Harold really swore was simply to marry William's 
daughter, and that he did homage to William as his future 
father-in-law. I think you will see that, though this would not 
be an oath to do all that is said in the other story, yet the other 
story could easily grow out of it. I need hardly tell you that 
Harold did not keep his oath even to marry William's daughter, 
still less to do all the other things which he is said to have 
sworn. Of these things you will easily see that some were 
things which he could not do and which it was not right that 
he should do. Harold of course had no right to promise the 
Crown of England to any man, as, whenever King Edward 
should die, it would belong to the Wise Men to choose whom 
they would. So too he had no right to give up a castle in 
England to a foreign prince. Indeed for a man in Harold's 
place, so likely to be the next King, even to marry the daughter 
of a foreign prince, though not absolutely unlawful, was a thing 
likely to be dangerous, and of which the English people were 
not at all likely to approve. In truth whatever sin there 
was in Harold's conduct was not in breakhig his oath, but in 
taking it. It was something like when Herod in the Gospel 
swore to cut off the head of Saint John Baptist ; his sin would 
have been much less if he had broken his oath. And of course 
in strictness Harold ought to have suffered anything rather than 
take an oath to do things which he could not do and which it 
would have been wrong for him to do. The truth is that oaths 
of this kind were in those days — as perhaps some kinds of oaths 
have been in our time — hghtly taken and lightly broken. Men 
did homage and became one another's men on all sorts of 
occasions and on account of almost any kind of favour that 
they received. A man sometimes had several lords, and it was 
not easy to be faithful to all at once. Duke William himself was 
the man of the King of the French, but there is some reason to 



THE REIGN OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR, 291 

believe that he had become the man of King Edward when he 
promised him the crown. It is certain that Wilham in several 
charters and letters calls Edward his Lord. So it was not at 
all wonderful if Harold became William's man, when William 
had done him so great a service as to set him free from Guy's 
prison, to say nothing of his promising to marry William's 
daughter and serving under him in the Breton war. Now in all 
these cases, when one man became the man of another, he was 
bound to his Lord by oaths, and those oaths were so easily 
and so constantly broken that men came to think but little 
of it. Every time that any Earl or under- King, like ^Ifgai 
or Gruffydd, rebelled, he was breaking his oaths ; so was every 
prince in Germany or France who fought against the Emperor 
or the King of the French. But this kind of oath-breaking, 
even when it was done quite wrongly and vvithout any provoca- 
tion, seems to have been easily passed by and forgiven. Harold 
most likely felt that he was in William's power, and that he 
could not get away against William's will, and he may have 
felt less scruple about taking an oath which it must have been 
plain that he could not keep if he wished to do so. Wilham 
had anyhow taken an unfair advantage of him, and he may 
have thought to repay him in his own coin. I do not say that, 
in strict morals, Harold was right in doing this ; but I say that, 
with the feelings of those times, he might easily think that the 
fault was a slight one, and I do very distinctly say again that, 
whatever blame he deserves, he deserves w^holly for taking the 
oath, not at all for breaking it. If he really swore all that is 
said, something quite beyond the common oath of homage, it is 
plain that he was unfairly entrapped into taking the oath. He 
ought then in strictness to have refused at all risks to take it ; 
but no one can say that, because he had taken it, it was his 
duty to betray his country to the Norman Duke, which was, in 
plain words, w^hat he is said to have sworn to do. 

I cannot tell whether anybody in England knew anything 
about the oath which Harold had taken to William. If men 
did know of it, most likely they looked on it as quite a light 
matter. But this oath of Harold's gave William the greatest 
possible advantage when he came to put forward his own claim 
to the crown. In truth Harold's oath could not give William 

u 2 



292 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

any more right to the crown than he had before ; but it gave 
him the opportunity of calHng Harold usurper and perjurer 
and so of setting men's minds in other lands against him. And 
William is said to have further entrapped Harold in another way 
about this oath. We are told that he took care that it should 
be something more solemn than the common oath of homage 
for which men had come to care so little. He caused Harold, 
when he swore, to put his hand on a chest, and, when he had 
sworn, he showed him that this chest was full of the most 
venerated relics of the saints gathered from all the churches 
of Normandy. Now in those times nothing was set more 
store by than the relics of saints, and it was thought that 
he who in any way insulted them — and of course to swear 
falsely by them was the greatest of insults — would at once 
bring their vengeance upon his head. Now the story says 
that Harold did not at all know that he was swearing on the 
relics ; so one would have thought that, if departed saints 
really could feel human passions and could have anything 
to do .with the affairs of this world, Harold was not the 
person with whom they had the greater reason to be angry. 
Surely the worse sinner was William in profaning such holy 
things to obtain such a mean advantage. But men, at least in 
other lands, seem not to have thought so. Men who would 
perhaps have thought very little of the breach of a common 
oath of homage were shocked at the notion of an insult to the 
holy relics, and they looked on Harold's perjury as something 
frightful beyond measure. Of course this was a very low form 
of superstition. An oath must be just as binding in whatever 
form it is taken, and with a really good man a promise is just 
as binding as an oath. The truth is that the fewer oaths ajid 
promises men load themselves with the better, as they cannot 
always tell whether they shall be able to keep them. But 
men thought otherwise at the time, and their thinking so 
did great harm to Harold and to England. But I think you 
will agree with me in holding that— supposing of course the 
story to be true at all — though Harold, in order to act quite 
rightly, ought never to have taken the oath, yet he would 
have done much worse to have kept it, and also that William, 
by taking such a shabby advantage of Harold, and especially 



THE REIGN OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR, 293 

by playing him that disgraceful trick about the rehcs of the 
saints, was really a much greater sinner in the matter than 
Harold was. 

We are now getting near the end of the days of our true 
native Kings, for we have reached the year 1065. It was a 
very troubled year. In July Earl Harold, as the Welsh were 
now so utterly conquered, ordered a house to be built at Port- 
skewet or Porth-iscoed in the land of Gwent, at one of the 
points where the mouth of the Severn is crossed. This house 
was to be a hunting-seat for King Edward, who, as I told you, 
was fond of hunting. So Earl Harold bade many workmen to 
be gathered together, and much food and drink and other 
good things. Now I think I told you that there were two 
Gruffydds about this time. The one of whom we have heard 
so much was Gruffydd the son of Lly^velyn of North Wales. 
He had killed Gruffydd of South Wales and had taken his 
Kingdom. But Gruffydd of South Wales had left a son Called 
Caradoc, which, as you will remember, is the same name as 
Caractacus. On Saint Bartholomew's day this Caradoc came 
with so many men as he could get together, and killed all 
Earl Harold's workmen and carried off all the meat and drink 
and other things. No doubt Caradoc did not hke to see an 
English King's house set up on Welsh ground, and he may also 
have been angry that, when Gruffydd the son of Llyvv^elyn was 
conquered, he did not get his father's dominions back again. 
No doubt Earl Harold would have chastised this insult, but 
just now there were much more important matters to be looked 
to in the North of England. The Northumbrians did not at 
all agree with their Earl Tostig, Harold's brother. By great 
good luck we get the story from both sides. There is no sort 
of doubt that the people of Northumberland were at this time 
far more barbarous than the people of the rest of England, that 
murders and robberies were very common, and that it needed 
a very strong hand to keep them in anything like order. It is 
said that robbers were so numerous and so bold that it was hardly 
safe to travel, even in parties of twenty or thirty. Earl Siward, 
though he had come to his Earldom by a gi-eat crime, had yet 
done some good by keeping a tight hand on these wild people. 
Earl Tostig, we are told, worked hard to keep them in order. 



294 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN, 

and to establish at least as peaceful a state of things as he was 
used to in the South of England. In doing this, he used great 
severity against all offenders, and even chastised some of the 
chief men for their misdeeds. On the other hand, the Nor- 
thumbrians complained of Tostig's unbearable tyranny, of the 
heavy taxes which he laid upon them, and how some of their 
chief Thanes had been treacherously murdered. One of them, 
named Gospatric, they said, had been, through Tostig's devices, 
murdered by order of the Lady Edith, when he came to the 
King's Court the Christmas before. Two others, they said, 
Gamel the son of Orm, and Ulf the son of Dolfin, had been 
murdered by Earl Tostig's own orders in his own chamber at 
York, when he had just pretended to make peace with them. 
You will remember several stories of murders of this sort, and 
they are nowhere so common as in the history of the Northum- 
brian Earls. Probably there was truth on both sides. The 
biographer of King Edward, who lived at the time, and who 
gives us Tostig's version of the matter, lets it out as it were 
that though Tostig's object was a good one, to keep order in 
his Earldom, yet he set about in too harsh and violent a way, 
and that he did not behave in the mild and winning w^ay in 
which his brother Harold always did. Now, if this be so, it is 
even possible that, if there were any powerful men, whose 
crimes deserved death, but who were too strong to be got at in 
the way of regular justice, he might think himself justified in 
entrapping them to death in the way of which the Northum- 
brians complained. I cannot tell this for certain, but it seems 
a likely way of explaining the two accounts. Anyhow the 
Northumbrians now rebelled against Tostig. On the 3d of 
October the Thanes of all Northumberland held at York 
what was clearly meant to be a meeting of the Wise Men of 
the Earldom, though it must have been a rather disorderly 
meeting. Earl Tostig was now with the King, with whom he 
was a great favourite, at Bretford in Wiltshire. The Northum- 
brians then in their meeting declared Tostig deposed from his 
Earldom and outlawed from Northumberland, and they chose 
Morkere the son of ^Ifgar to be their Earl. This was acting 
as if Northumberland had been a dependent Kingdom like 
Wales or Scotland, and not a part of the Kingdom of England. 



THE REIGN OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. 295 

Ever since there had been one King over all England, it had 
belonged to him and the Wise Men of the whole land to name 
Earls over the different parts of the Kingdom. Then they not 
only did this, but killed as many of Tostig's housecarls and 
friends as they could find, to the number of two hundred and 
broke open the Earl's treasury and carried off all that was m it, 
gold, silver, weapons, everything. Then Morkere, whom they 
had chosen for their Earl, came to them and marched southward 
at their head. The men of Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, 
and Derbyshire, where many of the people, especially the 
chief men and the men of the Five Boroughs, were of Danish 
blood, joined them, and they marched on to Northampton. 
There came Morkere's brother Edmn to meet him. He was 
now Earl of the Mercians ; it is not certain when he succeeded 
his father ^Ifgar, the date of whose death is not mentioned, 
but it must have been at some time between 1062 and 1065. 
Edwin now brought a large body of his Mercians and also 
many Welshmen ; you see the friendship between his family 
and the Welsh still goes on. At Northampton Earl Harold 
met them and held a great meeting. The King sent, charging 
the Northumbrians to leave off their rebelHon, and to have 
everything that they complained of tried quietly. They in 
return demanded that Earl Harold himself should go to the 
Kmg and lay their complaints personally before him, and 
should demand that Tostig should be banished from the King's 
presence and from the whole Kingdom ; otherwise they would 
deal with the King as an enemy. So Harold went to the 
King with their message ; on which Tostig charged Harold 
most unjustly with having set on the Northumbrians to make 
these charges against him. Nothing could be more unlikely, 
as Harold had no kind of motive for doing so. Harold at 
once denied the charge on oath.^ But though Harold had 
no motive to stir up the Northumbrians to rebellion, he had 
an obvious motive not to push them to extremities now they 
had rebelled. His disposition a.nd policy was always to be as 

1 The biographer here makes a very curious remark. He laments that 
Harold was rather too hasty in taking oaths. This can only be an alhision 
to Harold's oath to William, though he never directly mentions that oath 
in his story. 



296 OLD EI^GLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

conciliatory as possible, and just now, when he was hoping to 
be chosen King at the next vacancy, he clearly could not 
afford to make enemies of a large part of the Kingdom. 
However he did what he could for his brother. While he was 
with the King, the Northumbrians had been dealing with 
Northamptonshire as with an enemy's country. They not 
only seized many thousand cattle, which perhaps they could 
not help if they were to be fed, but they burned houses and 
corn and slew some men and carried off some hundreds as 
captives to the North. You see the sort of people whom 
Tostig had to deal with. The King was very anxious to send 
an army against the rebels and to restore his favourite Tostig 
by force. But Harold and others shrank from a civil war, and 
besides winter was drawing on, so that it was not a good time 
for warfare. So they persuaded the King to give up the 
thought of war. Then Harold went and held another meeting 
at Oxford, the Northumbrians having marched so far south- 
v/ard. He and others tried to persuade the Northumbrians 
to take Tostig back again, but they would not hearken. So 
Morkere the son of ^Ifgar was confirmed in the Earldom 
of the Nortliumbrians, and Tostig the son of Godwine was 
outlawed and banished. And whatever we say of the conduct 
of the Northumbrians, and however good Tostig's intentions 
may have been in his general government, still, if he really 
had put men to death by guile, we cannot but say that he 
was rightly outlawed and banished. In this same meeting 
they renewed Cnut's Law. You know now what that means, 
and you will remember how in Cnut's time they renewed 
Edgar's Law. So Tostig went away with his wife and child- 
ren to the Marquess Baldwin .at Bruges. We have seen that 
everybody who was banished from England used to go to 
Baldwin ; but of course Tostig had a special reason for 
going to him, as Baldwin was his wife's brother. King 
Edward was very angry at having to part with his favourite, 
and at not being allowed to punish his enemies. But Earl 
Harold knew that it must be so, and the King had nothing 
left to do but to pray that God might punish them. The 
Northumbrians certainly suffered evil enough in the next 
year and for many years to come. But I do not think we 



THE REIGN OF EDWARD THE CONFESSOR. 297 

have any right to say that it was because they had driven 
out Earl Tostig. 

King Edward now fell sick, and saw that his end was nigh. 
So his great object was to finish his great church at Westminster 
and to have it hallowed before he died. He lived just long 
enough to have this done. He kept Christmas and had the 
Christmas meeting of the Wise Men in London instead of 
at Gloucester as usual. And on Innocents' day the new 
minster was hallowed, but the King was too sick to be there ; 
so the Lady Edith stood in his stead. And on January 5th, 
1066, King Edward the son of ^thelred died. He counselled 
the Wise Men to choose Earl Harold as King in his stead, and 
he commended to his care his sister Edith, and those who had 
left their own country for his sake, that is to say, the French- 
men whom he had brought over to England. The next day, 
being the feast of the Epiphany, he was buried in his own new 
church at Westminster. Miracles were soon said to be Avrought 
at his grave, and about a hundred years after his death he was 
canonized as a saint. He was the last male descendant of 
Cerdic who reigned over England. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE REIGN OF KING HAROLD THE SON OF GODWINE. 
JANUARY e— OCTOBER 14, 1066. 

We have now come to the great and terrible year 1066. In 
the course of that year England had three Kings, I might almost 
say four ; and in the course of that year it was that the line of 
our native Kings came to an end, and that England had to 
receive a foreign King. And the King, before long, divided 
all the great honours and offices, and the greater part of the 
lands of England, among his foreign followers. No year, before 
or after, since the English came into Britain, was so full of great 
events as this. The year 597, when Christianity was first 
preached to our forefathers, was doubtless still more important 
in its results, but it could not have struck men's minds at the 
time in the same way. 

King Edward then was dead, and the Wise Men had to 
choose a King to reign in his stead. It was Christmas-tide, 
when, as you know, a meeting was commonly held, and this 
time King Edward had gathered together all the great men of 
the land for the hallowing of his new minster of Saint Peter. 
So no doubt there was a great meeting from all parts. Now 
you know very well by this time the old law about choosing 
Kings. If Edward had left a son or a brother who w^as a 
grown man and in the least fit to reign, he would have been 
chosen before anybody else. But there was no such person. 
There was no one left in the royal family but young Edgar and 
his sisters. Now Margaret afterwards showed herself so wise 
and good a woman that, if it had been the custom of our fore- 



REIGN OF HAROLD, SON OF GOD WINE, 299 

fathers to set women to reign over them, perhaps they could 
not have done better than to choose her. But it was not usual 
to choose Queens, and most likely no one thought of such a 
thing at all. And moreover she must then have been quite 
young. As for Edgar, he too was quite young, he was hardly an 
Englishman, having been born in a foreign country, and he 
was not, which was then so much thought of, the son of a 
crowned King. He therefore hardly seemed to men to have 
that sort of right which an ^theling commonly had. It was clear 
too that his election would have been most unwise, as he was 
in no way fit to reign. The Wise Men therefore were obliged 
to look for a King who was not of the royal family. This was 
the first time they had done so, unless you reckon the elections 
of Swegen and Cnut, who, after all, were a King and a King's 
son, though not of the line of English Kings. This was the 
first and only time that they ever chose an Englishman who was 
not of royal blood. They were obhged to look beyond the royal 
family; but when they had once done that, they had not to look 
very far. There was one man ready, and only one. As there 
was no ^theling fit to reign, whom could they choose but the 
great Earl Harold ? He had been the chief ruler of the realm 
for many years ; he had shown himself wise and valiant in war 
and peace, and he had been recommended to their choice by 
the late King. So the Wise Men of all England met and 
chose Harold the son of Godwine to be King. And on the 
same day on which King Edward was buried, most likely as 
soon as the funeral service was over. Earl Harold was hal- 
lowed as King in the West Minster by Archbishop Ealdred. 
Stigand had always been a firm friend of him and his house : 
but as Stigand was said not to be lawful Archbishop, the new 
King thought it safer to be crowned by Ealdred, against whom 
there was nothing to be said. 

I cannot fancy there being, in any land which is ruled by 
Kings at all, a greater or more glorious day than this, the feast 
of the Epiphany, 1066. Then our forefathers chose to them- 
selves a man to reign over them, not because he was the son 
or grandson of this or that man who had been King before 
him, not because he was a foreigner who had conquered them 
and whom they could not help choosing, but simply because 



300 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN, 

he was the bravest and wisest and best man in the land. If 
there ever was a lawful King in this world, King Harold was 
one ; for he reigned by the best of all titles, the choice of the 
people. 

So Harold the son of Godwin e was King of the English 
and Lord of the Isle of Britain. But there were some people 
in Northumberland who did not at once acknowledge him. 
But King Harold behaved in the wise and mild way in which 
he always did. He did not fight against them or use any 
harshness, but he went to York, and took with him his friend 
Wulfstan, the holy Bishop of Worcester. Wulfstan, besides 
his holiness, was a great speaker, as to be sure Harold was 
himself So Wulfstan and Harold talked to the Northum- 
brians, most likely in a meeting of their own Wise Men, and 
they came round and acknowledged the new King. So Harold 
was King over all the land without any shedding of blood. And 
it was, I think, most likely at this time that King Harold married 
Eaidgyth the daughter of Earl ^Ifgar and widow of King 
Gruffydd of North Wales. It is certain that he did marry 
her some time, and I think that this is altogether the most likely 
time. For the King to marry the sister of Edwin and Morkere 
was a good way to seal, as it were, his new friendship with the 
men of Northumberland. 

King Harold then came from York to Westminster to keep 
Easter. The Chronicles say that he had little stillness while 
he reigned, and so it was. Soon after Easter a comet was seen, 
which shone with great brightness for seven days. In those 
days men thought that appearances of that sort foretold some- 
thing wonderful which was going to happen, especially that 
some great King or Kingdom was about to be overthrown. 
And indeed they might well think so just then. For King 
Harold had two enemies to strive against at once. Though 
he had been chosen King by the whole people of England, 
there were two men in the world who fancied they knew better 
who ought to be King in England than the English did them- 
selves. These were the King's brother Tostig and William 
Duke of the Normans. Tostig before his banishment had most 
likely hoped to be chosen King himself on Edward's death, and 
of course the Wise Men might, if they pleased, have chosen him 



REIGN OF HAROLD, SON OF GOD WINE. 301 

instead of Harold ; but he had quite lost any chance that he 
had by his doings in Northumberland. He seems now to have 
got quite reckless, and to have settled in his own mind to make 
his way into England again on any terms and at any risk, never 
minding how much mischief he did to any one. And Duke 
William, it is said, sent an embassy over to Harold almost as 
soon as Edward was dead to demand that he should resign the 
crown to him according to his oath, or at all events that he 
should hold it of him and marry his daughter. But King 
Harold, we are told, answered that his oath was void in itself, 
because he had sworn to do what none but the whole people of 
England could do, and now the whole people of England had 
chosen him for their King, and he could not give away the 
crown which they had given him. And he added, we are told, 
that an English King could not marry a foreign wife without 
the consent of the Wise Men. You must remember that all this 
is not in the Chronicles, but it is most likely that William did 
send an embassy to Harold, very likely more than one. But 
I do not suppose that WiUiam really thought that King Harold 
would really give up the crown at his asking. But he could 
now say that he had tried to get what he called his rights 
peaceably. So now he began to think of coming over to con- 
quer England, and he set about trying to get friends everywhere. 
How far Duke William really persuaded himself that he had 
any right, of course we cannot tell j but he showed great skill 
in the way in which he mixed up different pretences together 
to deceive other people. First, he said that the English crown 
was his by right, as he was next of kin to Edward. Now he 
was not so near of kin to Edward as young Edgar was, and his 
being of kin to Edward was nothing to the purpose, if he had 
been never so near. For his kindred was only through Edwards 
mother Emma ; William was not of the royal house of England, 
he was not a descendant of Cerdic, Ecgberht, and Alfred.^ And, 
as you know, if he had been, it would have given him no actual 
right, but only a preference. Secondly, he said that Edward 
had left him the crown. Now I have told you that most likely 
Edward had once made him some promise of this kind ; but 

^ William's wife Matilda was descended from Alfred in the female line, 
but he does not seem to have put this forward at all. 



302 OLD ENGLISH HISTOR V FOR CHILDREN. 

you know that the King could not leave his crown to whom 
he pleased j he could only recommend to the Wise Men ; and 
whatever promise Edward had made to William he had re- 
voked by recommending Harold. Lastly, he said how Harold 
had sworn to him and had broken his oath, how he had profaned 
the relics of the saints, and so forth. Now, as I have told you, it 
is by no means clear what Harold really did swear, but supposing 
he swore all that any one pretends that he swore, still, though this 
might be a crime and a wrong in Harold, it could give William 
no more right to the English crown than he had before. Then 
with all this he artfully mingled up stories about the massacre 
of the Danes and the death of Alfred, and how the English, 
especially Godwine and his sons, had unjustly driven out Arch- 
bishop Robert and the other Normans, and a great deal more 
which might stir up men's minds, but which could not really 
have anything to do with the matter. You will see how very 
artfully all this was put together. No one thing by itself proved 
anything, but altogether it sounded as if William had had 
some great wrong done to him. I see no reason to believe 
that William had a single Englishman on his side, except it 
was one Ralph of Norfolk, whose father had been Staller or 
Master of the Horse to King Edward, and who now seems to 
have been banished. His mother was a Breton and he had 
lands in Britanny; so he went over there and joined himself to 
the Bretons who served under William. And it is very likely, 
though we do not know for certain, that some of the French- 
men whom Godwine and Harold had allowed to stay in Eng- 
land may have done what they could for William. But William, 
by his clever way of putting things, made people on the Conti- 
nent believe that he was all in the right. And he sent to Rome, 
and set forth how Harold had profaned the relics of the saints, 
and he asked the Pope to bless his undertaking, and promised 
that, if he succeeded, he would make England more obedient 
to the Roman See and would take care that Peter's pence should 
be paid more regularly. This was a sum of a penny yearly for 
each house, which used to be paid to the Pope. The Pope at 
this time was Alexander the Second, but the man who really 
managed everything at Rome was the Archdeacon Hildebrand, 
who was afterwards the great Pope Gregory the Seventh. 



REIGN OF HAROLD, SON OF GOD WINE, 303 

Some of you know his name as the Pope who made King 
Henry of Germany, who was afterwards Emperor, stand three 
days in the snow. I cannot say whether Hildebrand really 
thought William right or not, and it is certain that many of 
the Cardinals greatly mthstood him, and said that the Church 
ought to have nothing to do with a matter which would 
bring about so much bloodshed. So there must have been 
some good and wise men in the Pope's Council. But Hilde- 
brand insisted on helping William, because, whether Wllham 
was right or wTong, his scheme at any rate opened a great " 
opportunity for increasing the power of the Pope in England. 
So he made Pope Alexander approve of William's under- 
taking, and, when William was going to set out, he sent him a 
hair of Saint Peter in a ring, and a consecrated banner. So 
Duke William spent all the former part of the year in getting 
over people to his side, and in gathering together his army, 
and having his ships built. You may see the whole story in 
the Tapestry, from the very beginning. Duke William orders 
a fleet to be built, and you see men cutting down the trees. 

Duke William however did not at first find his own Normans 
very willing to undertake such a great and perilous enterprise 
as the conquest of England. They said it was their duty to 
fight for their Duke in any common war at home, but that they 
w^ere not bound to follow him to get crow^ns beyond the sea. 
So he held an Assembly at Lillebonne near the Seine, in a 
grand old hall — it was a new one then — which was pulled 
down some years back, and tried to persuade them. At first 
he met with great opposition, but the Barons were gradually 
won over, chiefly by William's great friend William Fitz- 
Osbern, though in the end they were rather tricked than 
persuaded. But when they were once in for it, however 
unwillingly, they did not draw back, but helped the Duke 
manfully. So Duke William began to get ready his fleet and 
army, and many men came to him not only from his own 
Duchy but from other countries. When King Harold heard 
of Duke William's preparations, he began to get ready the 
greatest host by land and by sea that had ever been known 
in England, and he set troops at different parts of the coast 
wherever the Normans were likely to land. You see this 



304 OLD ENGLISH ILLS TORY FOR CHILDREN. 

^Yas very different from the way in which things were done 
in ^thelred's time. And most hkely King Harold would 
have been able to keep the Normans out altogether, if he 
had had only the Normans to fight against ; but it was as the 
Greek proverb says, Even Herakles cannot fight against two. 
For early in the year Tostig had gone into Normandy to try 
to get Duke Wihiam to help him. But William was much wiser 
than Tostig, and he was not in so great a hurry. So Tostig 
had pretty much to shift for himself. But soon after Easter 
he had got together some ships somehow; so he came from 
Flanders to the Isle of Wight, and began to plunder and make 
people pay tribute to him, and then he plundered all the coast 
as far as Sandwich. Meanwhile King Harold was in London, 
getting together his great army, and as soon as he w^as ready, 
he marched towards Sandwich, and then Tostig sailed away. 
So King Harold spent the whole of the summer in the south, 
arranging his fleet and army as I told you for the defence of 
the coast. But they waited, and Duke Wilham did not come. 
It was the hardest thing in the world to keep an army together 
in those days, and the wonder is that Harold was able to keep 
his great army together so long as he did. But at last, on Sep- 
tember 8th, after waiting so many months, there was nothing 
more for them to eat; so he was obliged to let his people go 
home again. That is, I mean, the great mass of the people of 
the southern shires, who were thus gathered together and taken 
away from their homes. Of course he kept his own housecarls, 
and no doubt his kinsfolk and friends and his own Thanes 
would mostly stay with him. If he could only have guarded the 
coast a few weeks longer, and if he had not been wanted else- 
where, things would have turned out very differently from what 
they did. 

For when Tostig sailed away from Sandwich, he sailed to 
Lindesey and there plundered and slew men. But the two 
Earls, Edwin and Morkere, the sons of ^Ifgar, came against 
him and drove him out, so he went away to Scotland to 
King Malcolm, and stayed there all the summer. According 
to the Norwegian account, he went to his cousin King Swegen 
in Denmark, and asked him to help him, saying how Cnut 
his uncle had conquered England, and how he, Swegen, could 



REIGN OF HAROLD, SON OF GOD WINE. 305 

conquer it too. But Swegen answered : " Cnut was a great 
man, and I am a small man. Cnut won Norway without slash 
or blow, while it is as much as I can do to keep Denmark. '^ 
So Tostig went on into Norway to King Harold Hardrada, 
the brother of Saint Olaf, of whom you have heard be- 
fore. This Harold Hardrada was thought to be the greatest 
warrior of the North, and he had done all kinds of exploits in 
all parts of the world. He had served in the armies of the 
Eastern Emperors at Constantinople, who always kept a body 
of Scandinavian soldiers in their pay, and he had fought in 
Africa and Sicily, and had made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, 
and after he came back to Norway he had carried on a long 
war with Swegen of Denmark. Tostig had told him that so great 
a warrior as he was would soon conquer England, and that 
moreover many of the people would join him, Tostig. But some 
of the Northmen thought it would not be so easy to conquer 
England ; they said that our King Harold had with him his 
housecarls or T/iingmeJt^ any one of whom was a match for two 
men anywhere else. But at last Tostig persuaded Harold of 
Norway to set out. So say the Norwegians j but our English 
Chronicles say nothing about Tostig going to Denmark or 
Norway ; they seem rather to imply that Tostig found Harold 
Hardrada sailing about somewhere near Scotland or the north 
of England, and their account reads almost as if his coming 
into Britain was quite unexpected, which it could hardly have 
been if Tostig had been going about to Denmark and Norway. 
Harold Hardrada had with him his son Olaf, and Paul and 
Erling the Earls of Orkney, who had joined him when he was 
sailing about Scotland. The Norwegians say that he also took 
his wife Elizabeth and his two daughters with him, but that 
he left them in Shetland. Anyhow Tostig and Harold Hardrada 
met at the mouth of the Tyne, and Tostig submitted to him 
and became his man, and they sailed together to the mouth of 
the Humber, plundering as they went. They then sailed up 
the Ouse to a place called Riccall, and there left Earl Paul 
with the ships and marched inland. 

The Norwegian story has many wonders to tell us about this 
expedition, and how King Harold Hardrada and others in his 
fleet saw many strange omens and visions, most of which 

X 



3o6 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHLLDREN. 

boded ill to them. For instance, one Thored dreamed a 
dream how they landed in England and saw the English host 
coming with banners displayed, and before the host rode a 
huge witch-wife on a wolf, and as she rode she fed the wolf 
with the carcases of men, and as soon as he had eaten up one 
carcase, she gave him another, and she sang this song; 

" The armed host lifts the brio^ht red shield, 
As men are marching to the field ; 
The woman sprung of giants old 
Doth the King's sad fate behold ; 
Into the jaws of the swart-haired beast 
She sweeps men's corpses for his feast ; 
The wolfs fierce jaws with blood are red, 
By that woman ever fed." 

Now they had got near to York as far as Fulford by the Ouse, 
and there the Earls Edwin and Morkere met them on the eve 
of Saint Matthew and fought against them, and both sides 
fought very vahantly, and the English made part of the North- 
men to flee and followed after them : but then came up King 
Harold of Norway with his banner called the Landwaster, and 
he pressed mightily against the English that they fled, and 
more of them were drowned in the river than they whom the 
Northmen slew with the sword. So the Northmen had 
possession of the place of slaughter, and the city of York made 
peace with them and gave them one hundred and fifty hos- 
tages, and the Northmen gave to the men of York one 
hundred and fifty hostages. And the men of York received 
King Harold of Norway for King, and they swore to join 
him in making war on King Harold of England. And 
they said that other hostages should be given for the whole 
shire of York,^ and King Harold of Norway and the North- 
men went away to Stamfordbridge by the river of Derwent, 
and to Aldby the house of the old Kings, to wait for the 
hostages. But meanwhile the news was brought to King 
Harold of England that Earl Tostig and King Harold of 
Norway had landed in Northumberland. So King Harold got 
together his host, his Thanes and his housecarls and such men 

^ Deira is now beginning to be called Yorkshire, and Bemicia to be 
distinguished as Northumberland. 



REIGN OF HAROLD, SON OF GOD WINE. 307 

as he could get together speedily, to fight against King Harold 
of Norway and his host. And men told a tale how King 
Harold fell sick and was made whole again, which tale I will 
tell you in the w^ay in which I tell you other such tales. 



Now when Harold the son of Sigurd, King of the Northmen, 
and Earl Tostig the son of Godwine came into this land to 
subdue it, the news was brought to Harold the son of Godwine, 
King of the English. And King Harold sent forth to gather 
together his llianes and his housecarls and all his men of war 
to go and fight against Earl Tostig his brother and against 
Harold King of the Northmen. But while he was gathering 
together his host, he was smitten with a great sickness. But 
he strove to hide his sickness from all men, and day by day he 
worked manfully to gather together his host, and in the night, 
when he could not sleep, he prayed to God and sought for 
the help of the Holy Rood in whose honour he had builded 
his minster at Waltham. Then ^thelsige the Abbot of the 
minster at Ramsey saw a vision by night, for the holy King 
Edward appeared to him and said, '' I am Edward, who was 
but a little time ago King of the English. Go now to Harold 
who reigneth in my stead, and say unto him, ' Hearken, O 
King, to my words. Edward, w^ho was King before thee, hath 
sent me to thee to speak a word in thine ears. Know then 
that thy prayer is heard, and be thou strong and of a good 
courage, and gather together thine host, and go forth to fight 
against the men who have come into thy land. Fear not, 
neither be dismayed ; for King Edward will pray for thee and 
for thine host, and thou shalt fight against thine enemies and 
overcome them and slay them with a great slaughter. And 
if thou doubtest whether King Edward hath sent me, or whe- 
ther King Edward hath power to help thee, lo, this shall be a 
sign unto thee. Thou art sick wdth a great sickness, and no 
man knoweth thereof, for that thou hast hidden thy sickness 
from all men and hast striven manfully to gather together thine 
host. But Edward the King knoweth it well, and he knoweth 

X 2 



3o8 OLD ENGLISH HISTOR V FOR CHILDREN, 

well how thou hast prayed to God and to the Holy Rood, and 
God hath heard thy prayer, and thou shalt recover of thy 
sickness, and go forth and deliver thy land out of the hand of 
Harold King of the Northmen.' " Then ^thelsige the Abbot 
arose from his sleep, and he did as the holy King Edward 
had bidden him, and he went to King Harold and spake 
unto him the words which the holy King Edward had put in 
his mouth. And when King Harold heard that saying, he 
was greatly comforted, and .he arose up quickly, and straight- 
way he was healed of his sickness and his strength came again 
unto him, and he gave great thanks to God, and he gathered 
together his host and went forth to fight against Harold King 
of the Northmen. 



Now I do not ask you to beheve this tale as it stands, and 
yet it is one which is well worth reading and thinking about. 
It may or it may not be true that, when King Harold was 
setting forth to march to the North, he fell sick and recovered. 
If it were so, we can quite understand how such a story might 
grow up. And there is another thing that you may remark in 
it. Edward appears to ^thelsige and bids him take his mes- 
sage to Harold, when one would have thought that he might 
just as well have appeared to Harold himself. But you will 
generally find in what are called ghost stories that the ghost 
does not go to the person with whom his business really is, 
but goes to some one else and sends him on his errand. And 
some of you may perhaps remember a story in the early 
Roman History how Jupiter has a message for one of the 
Consuls, and how, instead of going to the Consul himself, he 
goes to a poor man in the country and bids him go to the 
Consul, and how the poor man is afraid to go, and how his 
son dies and how he himself loses the use of his limbs, till at 
last he is carried to the Consul with the message, and then 
Jupiter gives him the use of his limbs again, but I do not 
remember that his son came to life again. You will see that 
all these are stories of the same kind. But the reason why 
I wish you specially to remark this story is this. It is plain 



REIGN OF HAROLD, SON OF GOB WINE. 309 

the men who put this story together looked on Edward as a 
saint w^ho was able to work w^onders. But it is also plain that 
they did not look on Harold as a bad King or an usurper, 
or one with whom Edw^ard was likely to be angry ; but they 
looked on Edward and Harold as being good friends, and 
they thought that Edward would be likely to use his power 
as a glorified saint to help the King whom he had himself 
chosen to reign in his stead. Now you see that this quite 
falls in with the true history, and this no doubt long remained 
the English way of looking at things, in opposition to all the 
Norman lies and slanders w^hich I have so often told you of. 
I must now go back to my History. 

When King Harold had got together his army, he marched 
along the old Roman road from London to York, and he 
pressed on as fast as he could, stopping, so the Chronicles 
say, neither day nor night. Of course we must not take this 
quite literally ; it only means that they marched on as fast 
as men and horses could go. It must have been while they 
were on their march that the battle of Fulford was fought, and 
no doubt the news would make them go on even quicker 
than' before. You will remember that the battle of Fulford 
was fought on Wednesday, and that York surrendered to 
Harold of Norway on the next Sunday. On that Sunday 
evening, September 24, King Harold of England reached 
Tadcaster on the Wharf, which was the last stage of the Roman 
road from London to York, and near which the famous battle 
of Towton was fought about four hundred years afterwards. 
Here King Harold found the Enghsh fleet, which had sailed up 
the Wharf to get out of the way of the fleet of the Northmen 
when they sailed up the Ouse. So King Harold reviewed the 
fleet, and the next morning, Monday September 25, he set out 
again and marched through York, where the people received 
him gladly, but where he could not now stay long. So he 
pressed on to Stamfordbridge and came upon the Northmen 
unawares. They seem to have been spread abroad on both 
sides of the Derwent, and those who were on the right bank, the 
side nearest to York, seem to have been in bad order and not 
to have had on their full harness. Still they fought ver}^ bravely 
against the Enghsh, but they were most of them killed or 



3IO OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

driven into the river. Then one of our Chronicles tells us how 
one valiant man of the Northmen guarded the bridge against 
the host of the English, so that men could not pass the bridge. 
And he slew as many as forty men with his axe. And one 
man shot at him with an arrow, but it slew him not. Then 
went another Englishman in a boat below the bridge and 
smote him under the corslet that he died. Then King Harold 
and all his host crossed the bridge and fought against the 
Northmen who were on the other side. And now' came the 
hardest part of the fighting. For the Northmen on the left 
bank of the river had now had time to put themselves in battle 
array. And with them were King Harold of Norway and Earl 
Tostig and all the most valiant men of the host. So there was 
hard fighting for a long while, and many men on both sides 
were killed, but in the end the English had the victory, and 
King Harold of Norway and Earl Tostig were killed, and 
King Harold of England and his host overcame the North- 
men and smote them and slew them with a great slaughter. 
And the English had possession of the place of slaughter. 
And King Harold took oaths and hostages of Olaf son of King 
Harold of Norway and of Paul Earl of the Orkneys, who had 
stayed by the ships, and he let them go in peace. So King 
Harold the son of Godwine won the great fight of Stam- 
fordbridge, and saved England out of the hand of Tostig 
his brother and out of the hand of King Harold the son of 
Sigurd. 

This is the true story as far as I can make it out from our 
own books. The Chronicles tell us something, and still more 
may be made out from Henry of Huntingdon, who gives a 
very full and spirited account. There can be no doubt that he 
put it together out of a ballad which was made at the time, 
such an one, we may be sure, as the Song of Maldon. This is 
the real account, as far as we can see, but the Norwegian 
story has a great deal more to tell, much of which cannot be 
true, but as it is a famous and beautiful tale, I will tell it you 
as a tale. 



REIGN OF HAROLD, SON OF GO DIVINE, 311 



%\t Slxjrg of V^z cfijfet of Stamforbbribgt* 

Now Harold the son of Sigurd King of the Northmen had 
come into England with a great host, and with him came Earl 
Tostig the son of Godwin e, who had fled out of the land from 
the face of his brother Harold King of the English. So they 
sailed up the river of Ouse, and they landed near the city of 
York, and there fought against them Morkere and Waltheof 
the Earls, and King Harold the son of Sigurd and Earl Tostig 
smote them, and slew Earl Morkere, and Earl Waltheof fled 
into the castle of York and saved himself there. And then 
many of the men of the land submitted to King Harold the 
son of Sigurd and to Earl Tostig. So King Harold marched 
towards York to Stamfordbridge to take the castle, and the 
men of the castle and of the city held a meeting, and they 
submitted to King Harold and gave him hostages. This was on 
a Sunday, and on the Monday there was to be another meeting, 
when King Harold was to settle everything for the govern- 
ment of the city and of the land. So King Harold went back 
to his ships for the night. But that same evening came 
Harold the son of Godwine, King of the English, to the city 
mth a great host of horsemen and footmen, and he came into 
the city and the men of the city received him gladly. But 
King Harold the son of Sigurd and all the host of the North- 
men knew not that he was there. 

So in the morning King Harold the son of Sigurd blew a 
trumpet and bade his men go on shore. For now would he 
go and take full possession of the city of York. So of every 
three men two went ^^dth the King and one stayed with the 
ships. And with the King went Earl Tostig the son of God- 
wine, but with the ships stayed Olaf the King's son, and Paul 
Earl of the Orkneys, and Eystein Orre, a brave man whom the 
King loved and to whom he had said that he would give Mary 
his daughter to be his wife. Now the day was hot, so they 
laid aside their harness and marched along merrily. But as 
they drew near to the city, they sav/ a great dust as of men 
and horses marching. And presently they saw the flash of 



3 1 2 OLD ENGLISH HIS TOR V FOR CHILDREN. 

arms and of burnished shields. And King Harold of Norway- 
halted his men, and said to Earl Tostig, " Knowest thou what 
is this host that cometh towards us?" And Earl Tostig an- 
swered, *' I know not as yet of a surety what it is ; perchance 
it is the host of the English coming against us ; perchance it is 
only some of my kinsfolk and friends coming to welcome us and 
to bow to thee and be thy men.'' Then said King Harold of 
Norway, *' Then will we halt awhile, till the host draws nearer." 
So they halted, and the host drew nearer, and they saw that it 
was a very great host, and the arms of the men of the host 
shone like glancing ice. Then said King Harold of Norway, 
*' Lo, verily this is the host of the English, and King Harold 
the son of Godwine cometh against us ; let us now devise good 
rede for ourselves." Then spake Earl Tostig, " Let us go 
back to our ships, and get us our harness and the rest of our 
men, and then let us fight ; or rather let us go on board of our 
ships and fight from thence, for then the horsemen of the Eng- 
lish cannot harm us." Then spake King Harold of Norway, 
*' Nay, let us rather abide here and send three men on swift 
horses to the ships, and bid the rest of our men come to help 
us. Verily the English shall see some hard hand-play before I 
yield unto them." Then spake Earl Tostig, " Be it, O King, 
as it seemeth good unto thee ; of a truth I have no mind to 
flee before my brother and his host." Then King Harold the 
son of Sigurd spake unto Frirek his banner-bearer, and bade 
him set up his banner which men called the Landwaster. 
And he marshalled his host around the banner, and set 
them in a circle with their shields set firmly together, which 
men call the shield-wall, and he bade them hold their spears 
well against the horses of the English. Then King Harold 
the son of Sigurd rode round his host to see that all was as he 
had bidden. Now King Harold rode on a black horse, and 
his horse stumbled, and the King fell to the ground. And he 
arose speedily and said *' Truly, a fall is lucky for a traveller." 
Now by this time the host of the English had come near, and 
King Harold of England saw King Harold of Norway fall. 
And with King Harold of England were certain Northmen 
who knew King Harold of Norway. 

Then spake Harold the son of Godwine, King of the Eng- 



REIGN OF HAROLD, SON OF GOD WINE. 313 

lish, '' Know ye who is that goodly man who hath fallen from 
his horse, he with the blue kirtle and the goodly helm?" 

Then the Northmen who were with him answered the King, 
" Of a truth that goodly man who hath fallen from his horse is 
Harold the son of Sigurd, King of the Northmen.". 

Then spake Harold the son of Godwine, King of the Eng- 
lish, ^^ Truly he is a tall man and of a goodly presence, but I 
ween that his luck hath left him." 

Then there rode forth from the host of the English twenty 
men of the Thingmen or Housecarls, any one man of whom, 
men said, could fight against any other two men in the whole 
world. And they and their horses were clothed with armour 
all over. And they drew nearer to the host of the Northmen, 
and one of the horsemen of the English spake and said, 
"Is Earl Tostig the son of Godwine in this host?" 

And Earl Tostig answered, " It cannot be said that he is 
not here." 

Then the horseman answered, and said, ^'King Harold of 
England greeteth well Earl Tostig his brother, and saith that 
he shall again have all Northumberland; nay rather than that 
his brother should be his enemy, he will give him a third of his 
kingdom to reign over with him."" 

Then Earl Tostig answered and said, "' Truly last winter my 
brother had nought for me but words of scorn and hatred, but 
now he speaketh me fair. Had he spoken me thus fair last 
winter, truly many men who are now dead would be still alive. 
But tell me this also, If I hearken to the words of my brother 
and make peace with him, what will my brother King Harold 
of England give to King Harold of Norway for his toil in 
coming hither?" 

And the horseman answered and said, " Seven feet of the 
ground of England, or more perchance, seeing he is taller than 
other men." 

Then Earl Tostig answered and said, " Go thy way then, 
and tell King Harold of England to gird up his loins for the 
battle ; for never shall men say in Norway that Earl Tostig left 
King Harold the son of Sigurd and went over to his foes. 
Know this, that we will either die here like men or we will 
win England for our own with our own arms." 



314 OLD ENGLISH HIS TOR V FOR CHILDREN. 

And when the horsemen of the EngHsh heard that saying, 
they spake not again, but rode away to the host of the Enghsh. 
Then spake Harold the son of Sigurd, King of the Northmen, 
^' Who is that man who spake so well unto thee ?" And Earl 
Tostig answered and said, " That man who spake so well unto 
me is my brother Harold the son of Godwine, King of the 
English." Then spake Harold the son of Sigurd, King of the 
Northmen, " Then didst thou wrong to hide this thing so long 
from me ; for truly he had come so near to our host that he 
should never have gone back to tell of the slaughter of our 
men." Then spake Earl Tostig the son of Godwine, ^^ True, 
O King ; and verily it was not wise in so great a King thus to 
risk himself. Yet knew I that my brother would offer me 
great gifts and rich lordships, and, had I betrayed him, I 
should have been the murderer of my brother. Now if one 
of us twain must fall, rather would I that he should be my 
murderer than that I should be his." Then Harold the son 
of Sigurd, King of the Northmen, turned away from Earl 
Tostig, and spake unto his own men, and said, " Lo, yonder 
man is little of stature, yet sat he well in his stirrups." 

And now King Harold of Norway began to make him ready 
for the battle. And he put on his coat of mail which was 
called Emma,^ and which was so strong that no man could 
pierce it. And he made a song and sang it, and the song 
pleased him not, and he made another song which pleased 
him better, and- he sang that instead. And now the battle 
began, for the horsemen of the English came riding up against 
the Northmen, and the Northmen kept them off with their 
spears. And this happened divers times, and at last the Eng- 
lish began to fail and rode not up so fiercely as they had 
ridden at first. Now as long as the Northmen kept the shield- 
wall which they had made, no man could come near them to 
hurt them. But when the English began to give way, the 
Northmen broke the shield-wall and followed them. And 
when the shield- wall was broken, the English turned, and rode 
up from all sides, and hurled darts at the Northmen and shot at 
them with arrows. Now King Harold the son of Sigurd stood by 

1 I suppose this is Emma, a woman's name. The Northmen often gave 
names to their swords, so perhaps they did to their coats of mail also. 



REIGN OF HAROLD, SON OF GOD WINE. 315 

his banner the Landwaster in the midst of the host. But when 
he saw that the shield-wall was broken, he gat him to the front 
of his host and laid about him with his two-handed sword, so 
that the English were wellnigh put to flight. But one of the 
English shot him with an arrow in the throat that he died. Then 
Earl Tostig took the King's place by the King's banner the 
Landwaster, and the fight stopped for a while, now that King 
Harold the son of Sigurd was dead. Then King Harold the 
son of Godwine spake yet again to Tostig his brother, and 
offered him peace, and offered quarter to all the Northmen 
who still lived. But all the Northmen answered wdth one voice 
and said, " We will take no quarter from the English ; we will 
rather die, one man's body over the other." So the battle 
began again. And then came up Eystein Orre with the rest 
of the host, all in full harness. And now was the fiercest 
fighting of all, and Eystein' s men slew many of the English, 
and wellnigh put them to flight. And at last Eystein 's men 
waxed as it were mad, and that they might fight the more 
easily, they threw away their shields and their coats of mail. 
But thereby did the English smite them the more easily that 
they died. So the more part of the chief men of the host were 
slain, and at eventide the remnant turned and fled, and King 
Harold of England had the victory, and the English had pos- 
session of the place of slaughter. So died Harold the son of 
Sigurd, King of the Northmen, and with him died Tostig the 
Earl, the son of Earl Godwine of England. 



This is a very fine story, and well told, and the characters 
are well preserved, for the speeches put into the mouths of the 
two Harolds and of Tostig are just such as they would be 
likely to make. But we cannot trust the story ; it is so full of 
mistakes. For instance the Norwegian, or rather Icelandic, 
writer, whose name is Snorro, says that Morkere and Waltheof 
were brothers of King Harold, as if Godwine must have been 
everybody's father, whereas we know that Morkere was a son of 
^^dfgar and Waltheof was a son of Siward. Whether Waltheof 
^vas at Stamfordbridge we cannot say, but Snorro directly after 



3i6 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

gives quite a wrong account of his death, and we know that 
Morkere was not killed at Fulford, for he lived long after. Then 
the account of the battle is very strange and cannot be right. 
For you all know well that it was not the manner of the English 
to fight on horseback or to trust much to arrows ; and there are 
many things in the story of the battle which really sound as if 
they were copied from the account of the Battle of Senlac (of 
which we shall hear presently) only putting the English instead 
of the Normans. Snorro wrote in the thirteenth century, and 
I can only suppose that he described our King Harold's army 
after the pattern of an English army of that time, when the 
English horsemen, and the English archers still more, were 
getting famous; that is to say, by Snorro's time the EngHsh had 
learned the Norman way of fighting. But in the time of the 
two Harolds, the English had very few archers, and no horse- 
men. I mean that they had no men who fought on horseback, 
for you know that the great men, and seemingly the housecarls 
too, rode to the fight, but they got off their horses when the 
fighting began. If our Harold had had such horsemen as 
Snorro says at Stamfordbridge, he would not have been without 
any at Senlac. And the account of Harold Hardrada being 
shot by the arrow almost seems as if it were taken from the 
death of our Harold. The description of the Northmen fixing 
their spears and the Enghsh riding against them is just like 
what we read of King Edward the First's battles with the 
Scots. In truth at the time of the battle of Stamfordbridge 
the English and the Northmen fought in nearly the same way, 
only the Northmen seem still to fight with swords, while the 
English had taken to use axes. Then, if the story in Snorro 
had really been written at the time, surely that account of the 
one Northman keeping the bridge, which one English Chro- 
nicler has preserved, would not have been left out. And 
Snorro shows that he knew nothing at all of the geography, 
for he fancies that Riccall and Stamfordbridge were close 
together and that both were close under the walls of York. 
And he seems to have had no notion at all of the river Der- 
went and the bridge. So we cannot believe his story, but 
we must be satisfied with what we can find in our books. 
\nri f--- ^ them we may be sure that our men did not win 



REIGN OF HAROLD, SON OF GOD WINE. 317 

the battle by the help of horsemen or archers, but that they 
fought and won in the old way, fighting on foot, and cleaving 
down the shield-wall hand to hand with their axes. 

Tostig had two sons, Ketil and Skule. They both settled 
in Nonvay and left many descendants. So if we wish to see 
descendants of Earl Godwine in the male line, Norway is the 
place where we are most likely to find them. 

The battle of Stamfordbridge was fought on the 25th of 
September, and four days later Duke William landed in 
Sussex. Had there been no war in the North, he hardly 
could have landed. But you see that the force of the country 
had just been disbanded because they had no more to eat, 
and Harold's own followers, his housecarls and the men who 
were his own thanes and friends and kinsfolk were with him 
at Stamfordbridge. So the Normans were able to land \^dthout 
any man withstanding them. They sailed across from Saint 
Valery at the mouth of the Somme, in the land of Count Guy of 
Ponthieu, and landed at Pevensey. There are the walls of the 
Roman city of Anderida still standing, the city which the Welsh 
had, almost six hundred years before, defended against the 
South-Saxons, and which ^lle and Cissa had stormed, and left 
not a Welshman alive. One story, a story told also of Csesar 
when he landed in x\frica, says that, as Duke AVilliam landed, he 
stumbled, and, as he got up with his hands full of earth, one 
of his men said, "" This is a good omen, my Lord Duke, thou 
hast already taken seisin of the land of England." For, when 
a lord granted lands to a vassal, he often gave him seisiji or 
personal possession of the lands by giving him a clod of earth 
from those lands as a sign. So Duke William was said to have 
taken seisin of England, because his hands were full of English 
earth. Some say^that he burned his ships that his men might 
have no retreat if they were beaten, and might therefore fight 
the more valiantly. But this is not true. William found no 
one to withstand him at Pevensey, so he occupied the town, 
and made a fort, seemingly in a corner of the old Roman 
walls. He then marched on to Hastings, and abode there, 
making himself a castle of wood on the hill where the ruins 
of the later stone castle now stand, and from Hastings he 



31 8 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN, 

harried the country all round for fifteen days, up to the day of 
the great battle. 

Now there was a Norman favourite of Edward's, named 
Robert the son of Wymarc,^ who was his Staller and who had 
watched by his death-bed, and to whom he had given lands in 
divers places. This Robert now sent to Duke William, saying 
" My Lord Duke, I come of thy land, and I wish thee well, 
and I should be grieved if any evil were to betide thee. Know 
then that King Harold the son of Godwine is gone to the 
North with all his mighty men, and he hath smitten Tostig the 
Earl his brother and King Harold the son of Sigurd the 
mightiest of all warriors, and if thou abidest here he will come 
hither and smite thee also and thine host, for no man may 
stand before him. Get thee back then into thine own land before 
he cometh \ for I would not that thou and thine host should 
be smitten." But Duke William answered and said, " I will not 
get me back into mine own land ; for this land is mine also, 
and I come but to win the Crown which is mine of right. And 
now have I with me sixty thousand men ; but if I had but 
ten thousand, I would not turn back till I had smitten Earl 
Harold and chastised him for the false oath which he sware 
unto me." But before this time, while the Normans were yet at 
Pevensey, an English Thane had seen them land, and he went 
and mounted his horse, and rode northwards, and rested not 
day or night till he came to York, where King Harold and his 
host were resting after their great fight at Stamfordbridge. So 
the Thane came to King Harold, and said " My Lord O King, 
Duke William and his Normans have landed in Sussex, and 
they have built them a fort at Pevensey, and they are harrying 
the land, and they will of a truth win thy Kingdom from thee, 
unless thou goest speedily and guardest thy land wxll against 
them." And presently there came a churl also who had come 
from Hastings, and he told King Harold how that the Normans 
had marched from Pevensey to Hastings, and how they had built 

1 You might not have guessed that Wymarc was a woman's name, but 
so it seems to be, and Robert seems to be called from his mother. I cannot 
tell who he was, save that he is called a kinsman of King Edward's. But 
so are a great many people so called both in England and in Normandy of 
which it is hard to trace the pedigree. 



REIGN OF HAROLD, SON OF GOD WINE, 319 

them a castle at Hastings and how they were harrying the land 
far and wide. Then King Harold answered and said, " This is 
evil news indeed; would that I had been there to guard the coast, 
and Duke William never should have landed; but I could not 
be here and there at the same time.'* Then King Harold got 
together his own following, his housecarls and his ov/n Thanes 
and kinsfolk and friends, the men who had fought with him at 
Stamfordbridge, and he marched with all speed to London. 
And he sent through all the land, bidding all men everywhere 
to come to his standard and fight against Duke William and 
the Normans. And the men of Wessex and East-Angha came 
gladly, and many of the men of Mercia also, from all those 
shires through which the King marched on his way to London, 
and from the shires which were under the King's brothers, and 
under Waltheof the son of Siward. But from the other shires 
of Mercia men came not, nor did they come from any part of 
Northumberland, save only such as followed the King straight 
from York. For Edwin and Morkere the Earls remembered 
not how King Harold had saved them and their land out of 
the hand of Earl Tostig and out of the hand of King Harold 
of Norway. And they thought not how he had married Eald- 
gyth their sister, and how he had kept back King Edward 
from making war on them. For they said in their hearts, 
"What care we if Harold falls and if Duke William reigns 
over W^essex? We shall be the better able to keep Mercia 
and Northumberland, and to be Kings instead of Earls." So 
Edwin and Morkere and all the men of the North came not to 
King Harold's muster. 

As we are now coming so near to the great battle, I think 
it right to tell you whence it is that we get our knowledge of the 
battle and the whole campaign. The English writers, both the 
Chronicles and Florence, give us very few details. It is plain 
that they did not like to talk about it, and that they cut the 
story as short as they could. From them we should hardly 
learn more than that a battle was fought at such a time and 
place, in which the Normans had the victory, and in which 
King Harold and his brothers and many other good men were 
killed. It is therefore from the Norman writers, who naturally 
write much longer accounts^ that we have to learn all our details ; 



320 OLD ENGLISH HIS TOR V FOR CHILDREN. 

but of course we must use a certain caution in following them. 
There are three chief Norman accounts. The first is the Life 
of WiUiam by WilUam of Poitiers, who was Archdeacon of 
Lisieux and the Duke's chaplain. His book stops suddenly 
short long before the end of William's reign, for it was written 
during his lifetime more as a panegyric or book written in 
WilHam's praise than as anything else. William of Poitiers is 
very partial to his own master, and he reviles Godwine and 
Harold in the most savage way ; still his book is very valuable 
as being a book written at the time, and it gives a full account of 
the battle and of the whole campaign. The second is a poem 
in Latin elegiacs, expressly about the battle, called ^' Carmen 
de Bello Hastingensi." This was written by Guy Bishop of 
Amiens, who was of the house of the Counts of Ponthieu. 
He also lived at the time, and part of the poem is addressed to 
William in the second person. Guy gives a full account of 
WilHam's voyage and landing, of the battle itself and of the 
whole story down to William's coronation. He tells us a 
great many things which are not to be found in any other 
account, and he gives a very clear picture of the ground and 
of the array of the two armies. The third account and, I 
am inclined to say, the best of all the three, was not written 
with a pen but was wrought in stitch-work. This is the 
famous Tapestry of Bayeux, where the whole story from 
Harold's setting out to go to Normandy till the end of the 
battle is all worked in pictures, with Latin legends over each 
scene. There is no doubt that it was wrought very soon after 
the battle, but there is no reason at all to think that it was 
wrought by William's Queen Matilda. It is plain that it was 
wrought by order of Bishop Odo and was given by him to his 
cathedral church at Bayeux, where it used to be kept, though 
it is now in the Library there. That it was made for Odo and 
for Bayeux is plain, because several people are made very pro- 
minent in it, whom we hear nothing of anywhere else, but whom 
we know from Domesday to have been followers of Odo's, and 
who were therefore no doubt well known at Bayeux. This 
Tapestry gives the best and fairest account of all the Norman 
authorities ; you will easily see, if you think a moment, that 
though the Tapestry might show any part of the story in 



REIGN OF HAROLD, SON OF GODWINE. 321 

quite a wrong way, 3^et it could not colour and insinuate in 
the way that a stor}^ told or written can do. And it is a 
great thing to see the men as well as to hear about them, 
and to know what sort of clothes and armour and weapons 
they had, all which the Tapestry tells us better than any- 
thing else. Besides these three accounts, there is the account 
given by Master Wace, who was a Canon of Bayeux and 
born in Jersey, and who wrote a book in Old-French verse 
called the Roman de Rou. This is a history of the Dukes 
of Normandy,- and it is very valuable both in itself and as 
an example of the Old-French tongue. Master Wace did 
not finish his book till the reign of Henry the Second, but I 
think that he must have been an old man then, and that he 
must have been getting together materials for many years, as 
in one place he seems to im^ply that his father crossed over 
with William and that he heard part of his tale from him. Any- 
how, though he did not live at the time, he was a very honest 
and careful writer, and he takes great pains to compare one 
story with another, and, Avhen he does not know a thing, he 
fairly tells you that he does not know it. So I set great store 
by him. Besides these chief accounts, several things may be 
picked up from William of Malmesbury and Henry of Hun- 
tingdon, and also some things special about the place are 
found in the Chronicle of Battle Abbey and in a little book 
called " Brevis Relatio," a short and generally very bitter account 
of the Conquest, written in Henry the First's time. From 
all these accounts it is, I think, not ver}^ hard to get a good 
and full account of the battle. But I doubt whether anybody 
will quite fully understand it, if he does not go over the ground 
as I have done, with the original books in his hand or at any 
rate fresh in his head. I will now go back to my story. 

While the English host w^as gathering in London, King 
Harold and Duke William seem to have sent messengers to 
one another, as if it had been possible for them to come to 
any agreement without fighting. Of course William vras most 
anxious to make his cause look as fair as possible, and he would 
not lose any chance that could help him. But our own writers, 
as I said, seem not to have liked to write about so sad a 
story more than they could help ; so they cut everything very 

Y 



322 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN, 

short, and tell us nothing about these messages; and the 
Norman writers tell the story with such contradictions that it is 
impossible to make out what really happened. It was a case 
where messages were of no use, because it was quite impossible 
that any real agreement could be come to. Thus we are told 
that Harold offered William money to go away quietly, as if 
he had been a Danish pirate. We are told too that William 
offered to Harold at different times that, if he would give up 
the crown, he should have all Northumberland, and that Gyrth 
should have his father Godwine's Earldom of ¥/essex. Then 
Wilham offered that the Pope should judge between them, 
which must have been a mere cheat, as the Pope had already 
judged in William's favour. Then we are told that William 
said that it would be a great pity to kill so many men in both 
armies to decide a quarrel between their two selves. He and 
Harold would do better to fight, man against man, and let the 
one that killed or beat the other be king. You see the cunning 
of this ; it was at once an appeal to Harold's personal bravery 
and to his humanity. It was easy to say, if Harold declined 
the challenge, either that he was afraid or that he did not care 
how many men were killed in his own quarrel. Of course 
William wanted people to believe that it was merely a personal 
quarrel between himself and Harold. But our great King was 
much too wise to be caught in any of Duke William's traps. 
He answered that it was not his quarrel, but the quarrel of 
the people of England. I told you once before, when I was 
talking about Cnut and Edmund, that, if Harold and William 
had fought and if Harold had killed William, it was not the 
least hkely that the Norman army would have gone quietly 
home again. And if William had killed Harold, it would have 
given him no more right to the crown of England than he had 
before, and it is not the least likely that the English people 
would have submitted to him without fighting. In either case 
there would have been a battle all the same \ only one or the 
other army would have had to fight without its great leader. 
It is hard to tell how much of all these stories of messages is 
true, and, if any be true, how much happened while Harold 
was still in London and how much after he came into Sussex, 
the whole is told with such utter confusion. Then there arc 



REIGN OF HAROLD, SON OF GOD WINE, 323 

Other stories ; how Harold sent spies to Duke WiUiam's camp, 
and how Duke William let the spies be taken through the 
camp and shown everything, and then let them go in peace. 
Those of you who have read any Grecian history will remember 
exactly the same story of Xerxes. Then we are told how Duke 
William himself met Harold's messenger, and told him that he 
was only the Duke's seneschal, and got out of him all that he 
could, and then brought him before all his chief men, and then 
said, " I am William Duke of the Normans." Then we read 
a more foolish story than all, how Harold's mother Gytha 
wanted him to stay in London and not go out to fight with the 
Normans, and how he spurned her away with his foot. Against 
this we may set a story equally silly, which is told by Snorro 
the Icelander. This is that, when Duke William was setting 
out, his wife Matilda wanted him to stay behind, so he kicked 
her in the breast, and his spur ran into her breast that she died. 
Now Matilda did not die till many years after this time ; but 
even if it were not so, I think you know by this time what to 
say to stories like these. Indeed it is plain enough that the 
story about Harold's mother and the story about William's wife 
are really only one story, fitted with different names in the way 
that I have so often told you of. 

But meanwhile I will tell you an English stor)^, which is at 
least better worth hearing. 



Vilt Sforg 0f llje i0lg |l00b of Malt^am. 

You have heard long ago how the Holy Rood was found at 
Lutgaresbury in the land of the Sumorssetas, which men now 
call Montacute or the Peaked Hill j and how the Rood was 
brought of oxen to Waltham of the East- Saxons ; and how 
Tofig the Proud built there a church and set two priests to 
serve God therein ; and how Earl Harold the son of Godwine 
built there a greater and a fairer church, even the great minster 
of the Holy Rood at Waltham, and how he enriched it with 
many goodly gifts and set thirteen priests to serve God in the 
same. And when Earl Harold was chosen King over the whole 
people of the English, still he loved the church of Waltham, 

Y 2 



324 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

which he had built, and he sought to enrich it with yet good- 
her gifts and more holy reHcs than he had given aforetime 
when he was but an Earl. And when King Harold had gone 
to the North, and had fought the great fight which men call the 
fight of Stamfordbridge, and had smitten Tostig the Earl his 
brother and Harold the son of Sigurd, King of the Northmen, 
then came he back to his own house at Waltham, and dwelt 
there awhilq in peace.^ And while the King dwelt at Waltham, 
there came a messenger to him saying, ''' Lo, William Duke of 
the Normans hath landed at Pevensey of the South-Saxons, and 
hath built him a fort at Hastings and is harrying the whole land." 
Then King Harold answered and said, " Then will I go forth 
and fight against him, and by God's help I will smite him and his 
host, even as I have smitten Harold the son of Sigurd, King of 
the Northmen." But the King's friends said to him, " Tarry 
awhile, O King, till thou canst gather a greater host than thou 
hast ; for the men who fought with thee at Stamfordbridge are 
scattered every man to his own home." But the King would 
not hearken, and he said, *' Nay, but I will go forth with such 
men as I have, that I may come upon the Normans unawares 
and smite them suddenly, before other men come across the 
sea to help them." But before the King went forth, he arose 
early in the morning to pray in the minster of the Holy Rood. 
And he took with him certain relics from his own chapel, and 
he put them upon the altar, and he vowed a vow to God that, 
if God would give him victory over the Normans, he would 
give to the church of Waltham yet greater gifts and would set 
yet more priests to serve God therein, and that he would give 
himself to serve God as it were a slave redeemed from bondage. 
Then the canons and all the priests and the singers and all 
the men of the church of Waltham formed in a procession and 
led the King to the door of the church where the Holy Rood 
was. And King Harold fell down before the Holy Rood with 
his face to the ground and his arms spread out like the arms 

^ You see this cannot be ti*ue, as we know that Harold heard the news 
of William's landing while he was still at York, and that he then marched 
straight from York to London. But that, while he was waiting in London, 
he went to Waltham to pray in his own church, before he went forth to 
the war in Sussex, is very likely indeed. 



REIGN OF HAROLD, SON OF GOD WINE. 325 

of one nailed to the cross. And he prayed. Now before this 
the face of our Lord on the Holy Rood looked upwards. But 
as King Harold lay on the ground and prayed, lo, the image 
bowed its head towards the King as he lay. And ever since 
that day the head of the image on the Holy Rood hath been 
bowed to the ground. And I who tell this tale ^ have spoken 
with many men who saw the Holy Rood while the face of our 
Lord thereon looked upwards. But one man only saw the 
image bow its head while King Harold lay praying. This was 
Thurkill the sacrist, who stood by the King, and from him I 
heard it ; for I saw him two years before he died and I helped 
to bury him. So Thurkill the sacrist saw this great wonder, 
that the image bowed and looked sad. And he feared greatly, 
for he thought that it was an evil sign, and he feared that 
some great harm would come upon King Harold and upon all 
England. So he told his brethren the canons, and when 
King Harold went forth to fight in Sussex, they sent two of 
the chief of them, Osgod and ^thelric the Childmaster, that 
they might see how it fared with King Harold and with all 
their friends that were with him, and that if he or they should 
die in the fight, they might bring their bodies home to bury 
them in the minster of the Holy Rood. 



King Harold stayed about six days in London, gathering 
men together from all parts, and he made ready to go forth to 
the war against Duke WilHam. And a story is told how Earl 
Gyrth his brother counselled him to abide in London and 
gather more men, and to let him, Gyrth, go forth with the host 
to the war. " Thou hast sworn," he said, " to the Duke, and 
perchance thou mayest meet' him in battle face to face, and it 
were not well to meet one to whom thou hast sworn. But I 
have sworn to no man save to thee, and I can meet any man 
in the world with a safe conscience. Let me then go forth and 
fight, and do thou abide here, and gather fresh troops, and 

^ The story is told by one who had been canon of Waltham and who 
wrote the book " De Inventione Sanctae Crucis Walthamensis." According 
to his account, Thurkill died in 1126, while the writer was a boy attached 
to the Colle"^e. 



326 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

then go forth and lay waste all the land as thou goest, that the 
Frenchmen may not be able to find food." And King Harold 
answered, -^ Thy counsel is wise, my brother ; yet may not a 
King of the English fall back before the foe. And God forbid 
that I should ever lay waste mine own land and harm mine 
own folk ! Hath not this people chosen me to be their King ? 
I must therefore guard them and fight for them while I live, 
and I will never lay waste their land." You may believe this 
story or not as you please; it is only Norman writers who 
tell it ; but anyhow it sets before us how even his enemies 
knew Harold for a King who loved his people and would not 
harm his own land. 

So King Harold set forth from London, with Earl Gyrth 
his brother and Earl Leofwine his brother, and all his house- 
carls, and the men of London and of Kent and very many 
of the men of all the southern and eastern shires of England; 
Now King Harold had an uncle whose name was ^Ifwig ; 
he was the brother of Earl Godwine, and he was a monk, 
and he was Abbot of the New Minster at Winchester. 
But when Duke William landed and harried the land, and 
w^hen King Harold his nephew called all men to join his 
standard, then ^Ifwig thought that those were times when 
even priests and monks ought to fight. So he and twelve of 
his monks put harness over their monks' garb and went forth 
and joined King Harold on his march. And Leofric the 
Abbot of Peterborough, who was the nephew of the great 
Leofric the Earl, came also from his monastery of Peter- 
borough, which men call the Golden Borough, and he too 
joined the King's standard. And the King marched on 
through the land of the South-Saxons, and he came to the 
hill which men then called Senlac, whereon now is the town of 
Battle, and there he pitched his camp by the hoar apple-tree.i 

The place was then all wild, seemingly without any house or 
church or anything ; but it was a very strong post, being the 
last spur of the hill country in the north of Sussex, standing 
out like a sort of peninsula, as it were to meet the hills that 
are nearer to the sea. A litde way off to the south is a 

^ So says one of the Chronicles. You must fancy some very aged and 
famous tree, perhaps a sacred tree in the days of heathendom. 



REIGN OF HAROLD, SON OF GOD WINE, 



j^7 



small detached hill, which I fancy was made use of as an 
outpost. On the main hill King Harold took up his post and 
fenced it in with a palisade. I wish you to mark how wise 
a captain our great King was, and how well he suited 
his way of fighting to the enemies whom he had to fight 
against. The Nonvegians and the English fought very 
much in the same way, forming with the shield-wall, hurling 
their javelins, and then fighting hand to hand with their 
great swords and axes. But now Harold had to deal with an 
enemy who fought in quite another way. I told you before, 
when I was telling you about Earl Ralph and his bad luck in 
the Welsh war, how the English, even their greatest men, 
fought on foot, while among the Normans and other French 
all at least who were gentlemen fought on- horseback. Also 
the Normans had many very skilful archers, while the English 
had scarcely any. Now you will at once see that it would never 
have done for our men to charge, axe in hand, on the Nor- 
man horsemen, as they had done on Harold Hardrada's shield- 
wall. The best thing for them was to encamp on a place where 
the Normans would have to attack them, where they could 
make their own shield-wall as strong as possible, and where the 
Norman horses would be of the least possible use. So King 
Harold pitched his camp on the hill, so that it would be the 
hardest thing in the world for the Norman horsemen to ride up 
the sides. For as they were coming up, the English would hurl 
their javelins at them, and when they came close they could 
not well ride up through the barricades, with our men behind 
the barricades with their axes ready to cut down any one who 
came near. I am no soldier myself, but, as far as I can under- 
stand such matters, King Harold seems to me to have been 
one of the greatest generals that ever lived, and if all his troops 
had only done as he bade them, it is quite certain that the 
Nomaans never could have won the battle. 

The Enghsh seem to have stayed only one night on the 
hill. The stories of the messages which passed between 
Harold and William are, as I told you, so confused that it is 
hard to tell whether they all took place while Harold was still 
in London or whether any of them happened after he had 
reached Senlac. But there is one story how King Harold 



328 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

sent a spy to the Norman camp, and how the spy came back 
and said that among the Frenchmen there were many times 
more priests than there were soldiers. He cahed them priests 
because they had their upper hps shaven. But King Harold 
told him that he would find these French priests right valiant 
soldiers indeed. And another story is that King Harold and 
his brother Earl Gyrth rode out themselves to spy the Norman 
camp, and how they quarrelled and nearly fought, but that 
when they got back to the camp they let no one know that 
they had quarrelled. Now^ could any Norman know about 
this? That some messages passed between the armies, and 
that Harold refused either to give up his crown or to stake 
it on a single combat, is likely enough, but I can tell you 
nothing for certain. 

It was now Friday evening, the 13th of October, 1066, and 
all men in both armies knew that the fight w^ould be on the 
morrow. The English ate and drank and were merry, and they 
sang the old songs of their fathers. Cannot you fancy them 
sitting by their fires and singing the songs about Brunanburh 
and Maldon ? I do not think they would fight any the worse 
for doing so. And they had priests and monks in their army 
too to pray with them and bless them, and no doubt they did 
so. But we have no account of these things from any Enghsh 
writer, and the Normians wish to make out how much more 
pious they were than the English. They tell us how, while 
the English did nothing but drink and sing, the Duke's 
army spent the night in prayers, and processions, and how 
Bishop Odo of Bayeux went through the camp exhorting 
and blessing and hearing confessions. Most likely Abbot 
^Ifwig and Abbot Leofric did the same. But how^ever either 
army spent the night, it is quite certain that both sides were 
equally ready for very sharp work in the morning. 

So on Saturday morning, being the feast of Saint Calixtus 
the Pope, Duke William arose early in the morning, and heard 
mass and received the holy communion, and then marshalled 
his army and made a speech to them. He told them that he 
had come into England to assert his just right to the crown 
which King Edward had left him, and to punish Earl Harold, 
who had become his man and had broken his oath to him. He 



REIGN OF HAROLD, SON OF GOD WINE. 329 

reminded them of the fame of the Normans in war, how they 
had won their land in Gaul with their own swords, and how they 
had given law to the Kings of the Franks, and how they had 
conquered all their enemies everywhere. But the English, he 
told them, had never been famed in war; the Danes had con- 
quered them and taken their land whenever they pleased. 
Then he went on to tell of all the wrongs which he said the 
felon EngHsh had done : how they had slain the Danes, the 
kinsmen of the Normans, on the day of Saint Brice ; how they 
had betrayed and slain their own ^theling Alfred, the Duke's 
cousin, and the Normans who came with him ; how they had 
driven out Archbishop Robert and so many other Normans at 
the time when Godwine came back from banishment. All 
these v/rongs he said he had come to avenge ; and God, he 
knew, w^ould maintain their righteous cause. The army then 
marched from Hastings to the hill which is called Teiham, 
whence they could see the English camp on Senlac. There 
the knights put on their coats of mail and changed the light 
horses on which they rode from Hastings for the war-horses 
which they were to use in battle. Then Duke William called 
for his coat of mail, and went about to put it on, but the fore 
part of the coat was turned backwards. Then said Duke 
William, " Novv^ is this a good sign and a lucky ; the 
Duke shall this day be turned into a King." Then the Duke 
looked out on the English camp on Senlac and he saw King 
Harold's Standard, and he vowed that where that Standard 
stood he would build a great minster in honour of Saint Martin 
the Apostle of the Gauls. And so in after time he did. And 
now^ all was ready and the host marched foi*\\^ard in battle 
array. Now the host was marshalled in three parts. On the 
left were the Bretons and Poitevins and men of Maine. Their 
captain was Alan of Britanny. On the right were all the hired 
men and adventurers of all kinds from France and Picardy and 
other places. They were led by Roger of Montgomery, a 
mighty man among the Normans. And in the midst of the 
host Vv'ere the Normans themselves, under the command of the 
Duke himself. In each division were archers, and heavy armed * 
foot and horse. And in the centre of all rode Duke William. 
He rode on a noble horse given him by Alfonso King of 



330 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN, 

Galicia in Spain. Round his neck he wore the choicest of the 
rehcs on which he said that Harold had sworn, and in his 
hand he carried, not a sword or a spear, but a mace of iron. 
Close by him rode his brother Bishop Odo ; he was the son 
of the Duke's mother Herleva, who after Duke Robert's death 
had married a knight named Herlwin. This Odo had the 
Bishoprick of Bayeux given him when he was only about twelve 
years old, and he was now quite a young man, and as fond of 
fighting as if he had not been a priest. He too, like the 
Duke, had a mace of iron ; for the laws of the Church said 
that a priest might not shed blood ; so Odo would not fight 
with sword or spear, but he said that it was not shedding 
blood to smite men w^ith his mace of iron. Hard by these 
two great ones rode William's other half-brother, Robert, 
another son of Herlwin and Herleva, to whom William had 
given the county of Mortain and who had afterwards great 
estates in England and was Earl of Cornwall. So the three 
brothers were near together, and close by them rode a knight 
called Toustain the White, who carried the banner which Pope 
Alexander had sent to the Duke. So they rode across the 
ground between Telham and Senlac till they came to the foot 
of the hill. 

King Harold had also risen early and had put his men in 
order. On the slope of the hill, just in the face of the army as 
it came from Hastings, he planted the two ensigns which were 
always set up in an Enghsh royal army, and between which the 
King had his royal post. The one was the golden Dragon, 
the old ensign of Wessex, of which we have heard so long ago 
as when JEthelhun carried it so bravely at the battle of Burford. 
The other was the Standard, which seems to have been the 
King's own device. King Harold's Standard was a great flag, 
richly adorned with precious stones and with the figure of a 
fighting-man wrought upon it in gold. As the English thus had 
two ensigns, they had also two war-cries. They shouted " God 
Almighty," which I take to have been the national war-cry, and 
they also shouted *^ Holy Cross," that is no doubt the Holy 
Cross of Waltham which King Harold held in such reverence. 
Perhaps this last was the cry of the King's own men. For you 
must remember that there were in the English army two very 



REIGN OF HAROLD, SON OF GOD WINE. 331 

different sorts of men. There were King Harold's o^^ti 
followers, his own kinsmen and friends and Thanes and house- 
carls, the men of whom the Northmen said that any one could 
fight any other two men. These were in short the men who 
had won the fight of Stamfordbridge. These wore coats of 
mail, and they had javelins to hurl at the beginning of the 
fight, and their great two-handed axes to use when the foe came 
to close quarters. And with these picked troops I suspect 
were reckoned the men of Kent and London, who are spoken 
of in a special way. But besides these tried soldiers there 
were the men who came together from the whole south and 
east of England, who were armed as they could arm them- 
selves, many of them very badly. Most of them had no 
coats of mail or other armour, and many had neither swords 
nor axes. Most of them had pikes, forks, anything they 
could bring; a very few seem to have had bows and arrows. 
Now in a battle on the open ground these men would have 
been of no use at all; the Norman horsemen would have 
trampled them do^^^l in a moment. But even these badly 
armed troops, when placed on the hill side, behind the barri- 
cades, could do a good deal in driving the Normans back as 
they rode up. But as far as I can see, King Harold put these 
bad troops in the back, towards what we may call the isthmus 
of the peninsula, where the worse troops on the other side were 
likely to make the attack. But his picked men he put in front, 
where the best troops of the enemy were likely to come. So 
when they were all in order. King Harold rode round the hill 
to see that they were all ready, and he, like Duke William, m.ade 
a speech to his men. He told them plainly that Duke William 
had come across the sea to conquer them if he could; they had 
nothing to do but to stand firm and defend themselves against 
him. He told them that the Norman horsemen were most 
brave and terrible soldiers ; if they once got on the hill, there 
would be very little hope ; but, if the EngHsh only kept firm in 
their ranks, they never could get on the hill. Let the English 
only stand still and cut down every one who came near the 
barricades, and the day was sure to be theirs. When the King 
had gone all round, he rode to the Standard, alighted from his 
horse, prayed to God for help, and stood ready with his axe till 



332 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

the enemy drew near. An English King, as you know, ahvays 
fought on foot, that he might share all the dangers of his 
people, and that, where the King fought, no man might think 
of flight. By the King stood his brothers Gyrth and Leofwine 
and his kinsfolk and chief friends. If we were on the hill of 
Senlac, I could show you wdthin a few feet where the Standard 
was pitched and where King Harold stood. For in after times, 
when King William the Conqueror built his great minster there, 
called the Abbey of the Battle, the high altar of the minster 
was placed where King Harold's Standard had stood. So it is 
easy to find the place.^ 

Thus the English stood on the hill ready for the French host, 
horse and foot, who were coming across from Telham to attack 
them. About nine o'clock on Saturday morning they came 
near to the foot of the hill, and now began the great Battle of 
Senlac or Hastings. The Duke's army I told you was in three 
parts. Alan and the Bretons had to attack on the left, to the 
west of the abbey buildings. Roger of Montgomery with the 
French and Picards were on the right, near where the railway 
station is now. Duke William himself and the native Normans 
were in the midst, and they came right against the point of the 
hill which was crowned by the Standard, where King Harold 
himself stood ready for them. 

And now began the great battle. First of all, the Norman 
archers let fly their arrows against the English ; then the heaw- 
armed foot were to come up ; and lastly the horsemen. They 
hoped of course ,hat the shower of arrows would kill many of 
the English and put the rest into confusion, and that the 
heavy-armed foot would then be able to break down the barri- 
cades, so that the horsemen might ride up the hill. But first 
of all a man named, or rather nicknamed, Taillefer or Cut-h'on^'^ 
rode out alone from the Norman ranks. He was a juggler or 
minstrel, who could sing songs and play tricks, but he was a 
brave man all the same, and he asked Duke William's leave 
that he might strike the first blow, hand to hand. So Taillefer 

1 The place actually shown is a wrong one, as the altar of the Lady 
Chapel has been mistaken for the high altar, but it is easy to tell within 
a few feet where the high altar must have stood. 

2 In Latin he is called IncLor Ferri. 



REIGN OF HAROLD, SON OF GODWINE, 333 

the minstrel rode forth, singing as he went, hke Harold Hardrada 
at Stamfordbridge, and, as some say, throwing his sword up in 
the air and catching it again. Now perhaps you will wonder when 
I tell you what his song was about, for he sang of the Emperor 
Charles the Great and of Roland his captain, how he died in 
the fight of Roncesvalles in the Pyrenees. For French people 
had even then begun to fancy that the great German King was 
a Frenchman, and they had begun to tell stories and to sing 
songs about him by his French name of Charlemagne.^ So 
Taillefer now sang about Charlemagne, as about a hero of his 
own land, just as our men no doubt sang about Alfred and 
^thelstan. As he came near to the English line, he m.anaged 
to kill one man with his lance and another mth his sword, but 
then he was cut down himself Then the French army pressed 
on at all points, shouting '' God help us," while our men shouted 
"God Almighty" and ''Holy Cross." They tried very hard, 
first the foot and then the horse, to break down the barricade. 
But it was all in vain. The English hurled their javelins at 
them as they were drawing near, and when they came near 
enough, they cut them down with their axes. The Norman 
writers themselves tell us how dreadful the fight was, and how 
the English axe, in the hand of King Harold or of any other 
strong man, cut down the horse and his rider with a single 
blow. Duke William and his army tried and tried again to 
get up the hill, but it was all in vain ; our men did not swerve 
an inch, and they cut down every Frenchman who came near, 
King Harold himself and his brothers fighting among the fore- 
most. Soon the French lines began to waver ; the Bretons on 
the right turned and fled, and soon the Normans themselves 
followed. The English were now of course sorely tempted to 
break their lines and pursue, just what King Harold had told 
them not to do. Some of them, seemingly the troops in the 
rear, where the Bretons had first given way, were foohsh enough 
to disobey the King's orders, and to follow their flying enemies 

^ That is Carolus Magnus — Charles the Great. So Hugh the Great is 
called Yixii^Q^ le Magne. But it is possible that there is also some con- 
fusion between Karl and his brother Karlmann. The best way is to use 
the form Charlemagne only when one is speaking of him distinctly as a 
subject of French tales. 



334 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

down into the plain. It seemed as if the French were utterly 
beaten, and a cry was raised that Duke William himself was 
dead. So, just as our King Edmund had done at Shenstone, 
he tore off his helmet that men might see that he was alive 
and cried out, *' I live, and by God's help I will conquer." 
Then he and his brother the Bishop contrived to bring their 
men together again. They turned again to the fight; those 
who were pursued by the English cut their pursuers in pieces, 
and another assault on the hill began. Duke William this 
time had somewhat better luck. He again tried to get straight 
to the Standard and meet King Harold face to face. This 
however he never actually did at any time of the battle. We 
hear much of the exploits of both Harold and William, but 
they never met face to face. But just at this stage of the 
battle they were nearer meeting than at any other. William 
got so near to the barricade just before the Standard that Earl 
Gyrth, who we know fought near his brother the King, was 
able to hurl a spear directly at him. It missed the Duke, but 
his horse was killed and fell under him, as two others did 
before the day was out. Duke William then pressed on on 
foot, and met Gyrth face to face, and slew him with his own 
hand.^ Earl Leofwine too was killed about the same time, and 
Roger of Montgomery and his Frenchmen to the right con- 
trived to break down part of the barricade on that side. So 
this second attack was by no means so unsuccessful as the 
first. The two Earls were killed, and the barricade was begin- 
ning to give way.- Still Duke William saw that he could never 
win the battle by making his horsemen charge up the hill in 
the teeth of the English axes. He saw that his only chance 
was to tempt the English to break their shield-wall, and come 
down into the plain. So he tried a very daring and dangerous 
trick. He had seen the advantage which by his good general- 
ship he had contrived to gain out of the real flight of his men 
a little time before ; so he ordered his troops to pretend flight, 
and, if the EngUsh followed, to turn upon them. And so it 

1 There are several accounts of the death of Gyrth. One makes him 
die the last man at the Standard after Harold was killed. But, on the 
whole, the evidence seems to be in favour of his being killed at this stage 
of the battle, and by William's own hand. 



REIGX OF HAROLD, SON OF GODWIXE. 335 

was; the whole French army seemed to be fleeing a second tmie; 
so a great many of the English ran down the hill to chase them. 
As far as I can make out, it was only the light-amied, the 
troops on the right, who did this ; I do not think that any 
of King Harold's own housecarls left their ranks. So the 
Normans seemed to fly, and the English followed after them. 
But presently the Normans turned, and now the English had 
to fly. It was most foolish of them to disobey the King's 
orders, and this disobedience lost the battle, and lost every- 
thing ; still we must say that those who had made this great 
mistake did their best to make up for it. Some m.anaged to 
seize the little hill which I before spoke of, and thence they 
hurled do^\Ti javelins and stones on those who attacked them, 
and thus they completely cut off a party who were sent against 
them. Others, who knew^ the ground well, led the French- 
men who chased them to a place near the isthmus — I ^rish 
we were there that I might show it you — where the ground is 
very rough, and where there is a little narrow cleft with steep 
sides, all covered with bushes and low trees. So the Nor- 
mans came riding on, and their horses came tumbling head 
over heels into the trap which was thus ready for them, and 
the English who were flying now turned round and killed the 
riders. 

All this was bravely and cleverly done ; but it could not 
recover the battle, now that King Harold's mse orders had 
once been disobeyed. The English line was now broken ; the 
hill was defenceless at many points; so the Normans could 
now ride up, and the battle was now fought on the hill. The 
fight was by no means over yet ; the English had lost their 
great advantage of the ground; but. King Harold and all his 
mighty men were still there ; so they still formed their shield- 
Vv'all and fought A\ith their great axes. Now if you think a 
moment, you -^^ill easily see that the English must have got tired 
much sooner than the Normans. It is a very wear^dng thing to 
stand still for a long time together, watching for the moment 
when one has to strike or to do anything. It is far more 
wear}dng to do this than to ride or walk or run backwards and 
fonvards, which is w^hat the Nomians had to do. I suppose it 
was throudi sheer weariness that the Endish seem to have 



33^ OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

gradually lost their close array, so that the battle changed into 
a series of single combats ; here one or two Frenchmen cutting 
down an Englishman, here one or two Englishmen cutting down 
a Frenchman. Very valiant deeds of this sort were done by 
many men in both armies. . They had now been fighting ever 
since nine in the morning, and twilight was now coming on. 
Luck had no doubt now turned against the English ; still they 
were by no means beaten yet, and it is by no means clear that 
they would have been beaten after all, if King Harold had 
only lived till night-fall. Here, as always in these times, 
everything depended on one man. Harold still lived and 
fought by his Standard, and it was against that point that all 
the efforts and all the devices of the Normans were now aimed. 
The Norman archers had begun the fight and the Norman 
archers were now to end it. Duke William now bade them 
shoot up in the air that the arrows might fall like bolts from 
heaven. This device proved the most successful of all ; some 
men were pierced right through their helmets ; others had their 
eyes put out ; others lifted up their shields to guard their heads, 
and so could not wield their axes so well as before. King 
Harold still stood — you may see him in the Tapestry — standing 
close by the golden Dragon, with his axe in his hand, and his 
shield pierced with several arrows. But now the hour of our 
great King was come. Every foe who had come near him had 
felt the might of that terrible axe, but his axe could not guard 
him against this awful shower of arrows. One shaft, falling, as 
I said, from heaven, pierced his right eye ; he clutched at it 
and broke off the shaft ; his axe dropped from his hand, and 
he fell, all disabled by pain, in his own place as King between 
the two royal ensigns. Twenty Norman knights now swore to 
take the Standard, now that the King no longer defended it ; 
they rushed on ; most of them were killed by the Enghsh who 
still fought around their w^ounded King ; but those who escaped 
succeeded in beating down the Standard of the Fighting Man 
and in bearing off the Golden Dragon. That ancient ensign, 
which had shone over so many battlefields, was never again 
carried before a true English King. Then four knights, one 
of whom was Count Eustace, rushed upon King Harold as he 
lay dying ; they killed him with several wounds, and mangled 



REIGN OF HAROLD, SON OF GOD WINE, 337 

his body. Such was the end of the last native King of the 
English, Harold the son of Godwine. He fell by the most 
glorious of deaths, fighting for the land and the people which 
he had loved so well. 

But still the fight was not over. Such of the housecarls and 
other picked men as still lived still fought on, and, as far as I 
can see, they were all killed at their posts. Abbot ^Ifwig and 
his twelve monks were all killed, and Abbot Leofric was sore 
wounded, but he got home to Peterborough and died soon after. 
I fancy that he must have been one of those who were carried 
off the next day among the dead bodies. One story says that 
King Harold himself was carried off in this way, and lived for 
some time after, but we know that this is not true. I fancy that 
all those of the picked men who escaped at all escaped in this 
way. We hear nothing of any prisoners being taken, nothing 
of any of the axemen taking to flight. But as it grew dark, 
those of the light-armed men who were left fled, some of 
them on the horses on which the leaders, though they fought 
on foot, had ridden to the battle. Duke Wifliam and the 
Normans followed them, but the English, who knew the 
ground, were able even now to do the Normans a great 
damage. On the north side, near where the parish church 
now stands, the side of the hill is very steep and the ground at 
the bottom is swampy. The English had the art to entice the 
pursuers to follow them to this point, where, now in the dark, 
they had even worse luck than they had had on the other side 
of the hill earlier in the day. Again the Norman horses and 
horsemen came tumbling down the steep place, where some 
were choked in the swamp, and others were killed by the 
English, who turned and took no small vengeance for their own 
defeat and the death of their King. Thus the Normans suf- 
fered a very heavy loss even after they had gained the day, 
besides all the men who had been killed earlier in the battle. 
I do not suppose there ever was a more hard-fought battle, or 
one in which more courage and skill was shown on both sides. 
The EngUsh lost the day, but, as far as good fighting was con- 
cerned, they certainly lost no honour. Even the great fault of 
those who broke their line, and so lost the day, was not a fault 

z 



338 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN, 

of cowardice but of over-eagerness. This great battle, like every- 
thing else in these times, shows how great was the difference 
between one King or leader and another. Under ^thelred and 
his favourites Englishmen could do nothing ; under Edmund or 
Harold they could do everything. And Harold was better off 
than Edmund in having no traitor in his camp. Edwin and 
Morkere were indeed almost as bad as Eadric ; but then they 
kept away from the battle altogether. 

The great battle being over, Duke William came back to the 
hill, and stayed there all night. He had the dead bodies swept 
away around where the Standard had stood, and there he 
pitched his tent and did eat and drink. The next day he had 
the dead among his own men buried, and he gave leave that the 
women and people of the country might take away and bury 
the bodies of the slain English. So many women came and 
took away the bodies of their husbands and sons and brothers. 
Then the two canons of Waltham, who had followed the army, 
Osgod and ^thelric the Childmaster, came to the Duke and 
craved that they might take the body of their founder King 
Harold, and bury it in his own minster at Waltham. And 
Gytha the mother of the King also craved the body of her son. 
I cannot say for certain whether she too had followed the army, 
or whether she only sent word by the canons, but she offered 
the Duke King Harold^s weight in gold if she might have his 
body to bury at Waltham. But the Duke said Nay ; for that 
Harold was perjured and excommunicated, and might not be 
buried in holy ground. Now there was in the Norman army one 
William Malet, a brave knight, who was in some way or other 
a friend or kinsman of King Harold's ; so Duke William bade 
William Malet to take the body of his friend and bury it on 
the sea-coast, under a heap of stones, which men call a cairn. 
For Duke William said : " He guarded the shore when living, 
let him guard it now that he is dead." But no man could find 
the body ; even Osgod and -^thelric, who knew him well, could 
not find it, for it was all defaced and mangled, and it had been 
thrown aside when the bodies were cleared away for William's 
tent to be pitched. But there was a lady called Edith, 
whom for her beauty men called Swanneshals^ or the Swan's 
^ You know the word hals in German, and it is also still used in Scotland. 



REIGN OF HAROLD, SON 01 GOD WINE, 339 

Neck, whom King Harold had loved in old times when he was 
Earl of the East Angles. Either she had followed the canons 
from Waltham, or they went and fetched her. So Edith went 
and looked for the body of King Harold among the heaps of the 
slain English. And she knew him not by his face, which was 
all mangled so that no man could know him, but by a mark on 
his body. So William Malet and the canons took up the body 
of King Harold and buried it under a cairn on the rocks by 
Hastings. But after a while, when Duke William was crowned 
King of the English, he relented, and men took up the body 
of King Harold from under the heap of stones, and buried it 
in his own minster at Waltham. And there might men see the 
tomb of the great King Harold, until such time as Waltham and 
so many other churches were spoiled and the tombs of our 
Kings and great men broken down. The choir of Waltham 
Minster has long been pulled down, and I cannot show you the 
tomb of King Harold any more than the tomb of King Alfred. 
But I can tell you this. AVhen the great King Edward, called 
the First, because he was the first of, the name who reigned 
after the Norman Conquest, died in the North of England, 
they took his body to bury it in the Abbey of Saint Peter at 
Westminster, a great part of which he himself had rebuilt. And 
on the way they rested at Waltham, and the body of the great 
King Edward was laid for a while in the Minster of the Holy 
Cross. So the bodies of the two greatest Kings that ever 
reigned over the whole Kingdom of England lay for a short 
space side by side. 



z 2 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE INTERREGNUM. OCTOBER i— DECEMBER 25, 1066. 

You will understand quite well that, though Duke William 
had won the great battle, and though King Harold was dead, 
that did not at once make the Duke King of the English. 
You know by this time that in those days a man who was 
chosen King, where the Kingdom was elective, or who suc- 
ceeded by right of birth, where the Kingdom was hereditary, 
still was not fully King till he was crowned, generally by the 
chief Bishop of the country. Such a man's birth or election 
gave him a right to claim to be crowned King, but he was not 
King till he was crowned. So Duke William, though he gave 
out that he alone had a right to be King of the English, 
still did not call himself King after he had won the battle 
any more than he did before. And it was not yet at all 
clear that he ever would be King. He had, after all, only 
won one battle, and got possession of part of one shire. 
You know that both Swegen and Cnut had to do a great 
deal more than this before they were Kings over the whole 
land. And no doubt, had there been one man in the land 
like Harold or Edmund or Alfred, Duke William would have 
had to fight many another battle, and perhaps he never 
would have been King at all. You remember all the battles 
which Edmund fought, even when England was quite worn 
out with all the wretchedness of the reign of ^thelred. And 
England was far better able to resist now than she was then. 
But she had now no leader, any more than in ^thelred's time. 
There was nobody now left like Harold or Edmund. Gyrth 
and Leofwine were dead as well as their brother, and Waltheof 



THE INTERREGNUM, 341 

and Hereward, who afterwards did such great things, had not yet 
been heard of as great captains. So, after the battle of Senlac, 
Wilham never again met EngHshmen in a pitched battle. But 
he was very far from getting possession of the land all at once. 
It took him about five years really to conquer the whole King- 
dom, even after he had been crowned King. Still he had never 
again to meet the whole nation, or any large part of it, in 
battle. Men resisted and revolted here and there, this shire or 
that to^vn, and they often fought very bravely and gave William 
a good deal of trouble to overcome them. But there was no 
general resistance of the whole nation, because there was no 
one man w^orthy to lead the nation. So of course the land 
was conquered bit by bit. I w^ant you particularly to bear in 
mind that England was conquered only in this gradual way, 
even after William was crowned King, and that, till he was 
crowned, he did not profess to be King at all. 

I told you that Edwin and Morkere, the two Earls, the 
King's brothers-in-law, betrayed King Harold and kept away 
from the battle. As soon as they heard the news of his death, 
they came to London, and took their sister the Lady Ealdgyth, 
the King's widow, and sent her away to Chester. Then the 
Archbishops Ealdred and Stigand, and the Earls Edwin and 
Morkere, and the citizens and the sailors of London, and such 
of the other Wise Men as could be got together, met to choose 
a King. If they had known what traitors the two Earls were, 
the wisest thing they could have done, as one of the Chro- 
niclers says, would have been to choose William at once. But 
they naturally thought that, with all the force of Northumber- 
land and most part of that of Mercia, they could still resist. 
So they chose young Edgar the ^Etheling. Of course Edgar 
was quite unfit to be the leader of the nation at such a time ; 
but there was nobody else to choose, unless they had chosen 
Edwin, as he seems to have hoped. There was nobody else 
in the old royal family; Harold's brothers were dead, and though 
he had left three sons, they seem to have been mere youths, 
and so were no better than Edgar. So young Edgar was chosen 
King, but it does not seem that he was ever crowned. And 
Edwin and Morkere promised to be faithful to him and to 
go and fight for him against Duke William. So the citizens of 



342 OLD ENGLISH HISTOR V FOR CHILDREN, 

London and all the men who were at all brave and true of 
heart made ready to go out and fight. But the Earls forsook 
them and went away with their men to their Earldoms. I sup- 
pose that' they did not care to fight for a West-Saxon King, 
whether he were Harold or Edgar, and perhaps they fancied 
that they might be able to divide the Kingdom with William, as 
had been done in the time of Edmund and Cnut. They per- 
haps thought that William would think it enough to be King 
in Wessex, and would leave them to be Kings north of the 
Thames, instead of being merely Earls under Harold or Edgar. 
Anyhow they were thorough traitors, first to Edward, then to 
Harold, then to Edgar, and afterwards to William also. They 
kept faith with nobody, and in the end they were punished as 
they deserved. 

Meanwhile Duke William first went back to Hastings, and 
left a garrison in the fort which he had built there. He waited 
there some days thinking that people would come in and 
submit to him, but nobody came. So he set out to conquer the 
country, bit by bit. First he went to Romney. It seems that some 
of his people had been there already; perhaps one or more 
of the ships had gone astray and got on shore there. At all 
events there had been a fight between some of his men and 
the men of Romney, in which many were killed on both sides, 
but in the end the English had driven the Frenchmen away. 
So Duke William now, we are told, took from the men of Rom- 
ney what penalty or satisfaction he chose for the men whom 
they had killed, as if he had been making thern pay a wergild. 
I suppose this means that he put them all to death. Then he 
went on, still along the coast, as" far as Dover. Here was one 
of the very few castles which were then in England ; it had 
most likely been built by Harold himself So Dover was thought 
to be stronger than any other place, and many people from all 
parts round about had come into the town for safety. The 
castle was strong and stood on the cliff; but the commanders 
of the garrison were cowardly, and surrendered at once. So 
some of the Normans, who had hoped to have the plundering 
of the town, got angry, and set fire to some of the houses, and 
a good deal was burned. But the Duke paid the owners of 



THE INTERREGNUM. 343 

the houses for what they had lost. You may here see his 
crafty poUcy. As he gave himself out to be the lawful heir to the 
Crown, his plan was to treat everybody who opposed him as a 
traitor, and everybody who submitted to him as a loyal subject 
fulfilling his duty. So you see he was harsh at Romney and 
gentle at Dover. He then caused the castle to be further 
•strengthened. He stayed some time at Dover, because many of 
his army fell ill — from eating fresh meat, it is said. Meanwhile 
the fear of him went abroad. ''The powerful metropolis," we 
read in WilHam of Poitiers, " trembled." Now what place do 
you think is meant by ^' the powerful metropolis"? Perhaps 
some of you will at once say, London, because I dare say 
you have often heard people who like to use long words call 
London "the metropolis." But the place here meant is Canter- 
bury. Some of you have learned Greek enough to know that 
Metropolis (//Ty-poTroXtg) means the mothei^-city . When a Greek 
city sent out a colony, the city whence the colonists went was 
called the metropolis., as we now talk about the mother-country. 
And in ecclesiastical language Metropolis means an Arch- 
bishop's see, and in England at least very rightly. For Canter- 
bury and York were the first churches planted in the south ana 
north of England respectively, and all the other churches of 
England are in a manner colonies of one or other of those two, 
so that the churches of Canterbury and York are rightly called 
Metropolitan churches and their Bishops Archbishops and 
Metropolitans. But no place in England^ is in any sense, 
ecclesiastical or civil, a colony of London. London is the 
capital, the head-town, the largest town and the seat of govern- 
ment, but not, in any strictness of speech, the Metropolis. Yet 
I have known people who ought to know better call Saint 
Paul's church in London '^the metropolitan cathedral," instead 
of Christ Church at Canterbury or Saint Peter's at York. So 
Canterbury was the metropolis which trembled ; we shall hear 
about London presently. So Duke William set out, and 
received the submission of the citizens of Canterbury and the 
rest of the men of Kent at a place called the Broken Tower, 

1 But London is, in the strict Greek sense, the metropolis of Deny in 
Ireland, to which London sent a colony in the time of King James the 
First, whence it is called Londonderry. 



344 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

which seems to have been not far from Canterbury. There is 
a story told how the Kentishmen came to meet WilUam in 
arms, and how they hid themselves and their arms with branches 
of trees, so that they looked like a walking wood. Then sud- 
denly they threw aside the branches, and stood before him as 
an army ready for battle. Then the Duke was afraid, and he 
and the Kentishmen came to an agreement, that they would- 
submit to him, but only on condition of having all their 
ancient laws and customs confirmed to them. And this is the 
reason why so many old laws and customs still remain in Kent, 
which have gone out of use in the rest of England. I think 
you will see how unlikely a story this is in itself, and there are 
other reasons why it cannot be true. It is one of those stories 
which, as I have so often told you, go the round of the world. 
It is the same story which you will find in Shakespere's play 
of Macbeth, about Birnam wood going to Dunsinane. There 
is no authority for it at all, and in truth Kent submitted much 
more easily than many other parts of the Kingdom. It is 
no wonder that it did so ; the Kentishmen had been among 
the foremost at Senlac, and no doubt all the bravest men of 
the shire had been killed, and had left hardly any strength to 
withstand William. It is indeed quite true that William did 
not abolish the old laws in Kent, but that is because he did 
not do so anywhere, nor is there anything to show that he 
treated Kent either better or worse than the rest of the 
Kingdom. 

While Duke William was at or near Canterbury, he fell sick, 
which hindered him from marching on for a whole month. But 
he was not idle even during his sickness. About this time he 
heard that Edgar the^theling had been chosen King in London. 
Now the Duke's great object was of course to get London into 
his hands, ^nd also Winchester. Now Winchester had been 
given as her dower to the Lady Edith, the widow of King Ed- 
ward and sister of King Harold. Now as William professed to 
have come into the land as the heir and kinsman of Edward, it 
was of course his policy to show all respect to his widow. It 
is indeed not quite certain that Edith was not on William's 
side ; it is quite possible that she, like her husband, had been 
bewitched by the Frenchmen. And it is quite certain that, in 



THE INTERREGNUM. 345 

the quarrel between her brothers, she had taken the part of 
Tostig against Harold. So all that William asked from Win- 
chester was tribute, no doubt whatever the city had been used 
to pay to the old Kings. And this the Lady and the chief 
men of the city easily agreed to give. 

But the chief thing was to take London; so as soon as 
William was well enough, he set forth again on his march. 
He first sent out five hundred horsemen, who must have gone 
more to reco7i?ioitre^ as it is called, that is to look about and 
to see how the land Hes, than with any hope that such a force 
could take the city. But they had a skirmish with some of the 
citizens and drove them within the walls, and they burned the 
suburb or work on the south of the Thames, called Southwark. 
Now you may mark here the difference between William's 
campaign and those of Swegen and Cnut. The Danes had 
commonly attacked London with their ships ; but William, 
though he had not destroyed his ships, had left them behind. 
He seems to have meant to use them only as transports and 
not at all as war-ships. So you see that he could not get at the 
city, because he could not cross the river. He had therefore to 
march a long way up the stream, till he could come to a bridge 
which, was not guarded or to a place where the river could be 
forded. The Norman craters say that he went on like a King 
on his progress, doing no harm on his march, while the English 
talk much of the ravages of his army. I dare say there is 
some tmth in both accounts. It was William's policy to strike 
hard whenever he was resisted, but not to do any needless 
mischief to the country which he claimed as his own. He 
would not, like Swegen, give his men orders to do all the 
harm possible, but most likely quite the contrary. But in 
such cases it always happens that an army does a great deal 
more harm than its general means it to do. And if the 
people anywhere at all withstood him, William would himself 
harry and slay without mercy. So I think we can under- 
stand both accounts. So William marched up along the 
right bank of the Thames — I hope you know which is the 
right bank of a river — as far as Wallingford in Berkshire, 
where his army crossed the river, partly by a ford and partly 
by a bridge. • 



346 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

Now the commander of the forces in London at this time 
was named Esegar. He was the son of ^thelstan, the son of 
Tofig the Proud, and he had been Staller both to King Edward 
and to King Harold. His father had, as you will remember, 
lost his estate at Waltham, but Esegar had large estates in dif- 
ferent parts of the country, and he was one of the chief men in 
England. He was now Sheriff of the Middle-Saxons, which 
most likely accounts for his commanding in London. He had 
fought at Senlac, and he had been so badly wounded there that 
he could not walk, but was carried about in a litter. So you 
see that he could not have been one of those who fled just at 
the end of the battle. I should think that he must have been 
one of those who were left for dead, and carried off among 
the dead bodies. Esegar kept up the spirits of the citizens 
as long as he could ; but at last, we are told, though it seems 
a very strange story,^ that he told them that, as William's 
power was increasing every day, their only hope was to 
send and make a feigned submission, that so, I suppose, 
they might gain time. But William took the messenger in 
by his show of power and by his gifts and his kind way of 
talking. So when the messenger came back, he gave the citizens 
such an account that they agreed to surrender in spite of 
Esegar. However this may be, about this time they did agree 
to submit, and Edgar the King-elect, and Archbishop Ealdred, 
and some other Bishops, and the best men of London, and 
many Thanes from other parts, met the Duke at Berkhamp- 
stead, and swore oaths to him and gave hostages ; and the Duke 
promised to be good lord to them, and yet the Chronicles say 
that he let his army harry the land as before. So he came on 
to London, and on Midwinter-Day, that is Christmas Day, he 
was crowned in King Edward's new church, the West Minster. 
Some say that he refused to be crowned by Stigand because he 
was not a lawful Archbishop ; others say that Stigand refused to 
crown him because he was not a lawful King. I should like to 
believe this last story if I could, but it is only found in later 
writers, and it seems from Bishop Guy of Amiens Ihat Stigand 
was actually one of the Bishops who took a part in the coro- 

1 This story comes from the Latin poem of Bishop Guy of Amiens. 
There can be no doubt that by *' Ansgardus " he means Esegar. 



THE INTERREGNUM. 347 

nation. But the actual celebrant^ as it is called, the Bishop who 
anointed the King and put the Crown on his head, was Arch- 
bishop Ealdred of York, who thus crowned two Kings, and two 
such different Kings, in one year. The church was full of 
people, Normans and English, and some Nornian soldiers were 
set to keep guard outside. Then Geoffrey Bishop of Coutances 
got up and said to the Normans in French, " Will ye that 
William your Duke be crowned King of the English?" Then 
Archbishop Ealdred spoke to the English in English, saying, 
"Will ye that William Duke of the Normans be crowned 
King of the English?" So all the people, both Normans and 
English, clapped their hands and shouted "Yea, yea.'' So 
there was a great noise in the church. And the Normans who 
were set outside fancied, or pretended to fancy, that somebody 
was hurting the Duke. If so, one would have thought the 
right thing would have been to run into the church and help 
him, but instead of that they began to set fire to the houses 
round about. So the people began to run out of the church, 
some trying to put out the fire and some trying to plunder in 
the confusion. So Duke William was left with hardly any 
body in the church except the Bishops. Then he swore the 
oath of the old Kings, to do justice and mercy and to rule his 
people as well as any King had ever ruled them. Then Arch- 
bishop Ealdred anointed him and' put the crown on his head, 
and he became King of the English. 

Thus it w^as that Duke William came into England and 
overthrew King Harold at Senlac and became King in his 
stead. And now I will bring my History to an end for the 
present. I have now gone through all that we can strictly call 
Old-English Histor}', the History of the times when everything 
in England was purely English, before the Normans came and 
gradually brought in so many new words into our language and 
so many new ideas into our law^s. These early times are times 
w^hich I wish you specially to attend to and to remember about, 
because they are times which are so often neglected and so often 
misunderstood. And yet the right understanding of them is 
most needful, if only for the right understanding of the times 
that come after. And I think you will see by this time that 



348 OLD ENGLISH HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. 

they are times whose history is most important in itself, and 
that, if we only take care rightly to distinguish between true 
history and legend, it can be made both as useful and as 
pleasant to read as the history of any other time. Surely there 
is no time w^hich we ought to care to know more about than 
about the beginnings of our own nation and of all that belongs 
to us, and the deeds of those of our Kings who were most truly 
Englishmen. So now that I have brought this time to an end, it 
seems a good point to stop at, at any rate for a while. For I do 
not say that I may not some day begin again and tell you, if 
not the whole History of England, which would be rather too 
long a business, yet at any rate something about William him- 
self and the times soon after him, down to the time when the 
changes which were caused by the Norman Conquest were fully 
brought about. But there are two things which I wish you 
specially to remark and to remember now. The first is that 
William was not called the Conqueror because he overcome 
King Harold in battle and got the crown by force. To conquer 
means to purchase, and to purchase in law means to get property 
by any means other than regular descent, whether it is by 
bequest or by paying money or in any other way. William, you 
know, said that Edward had left him the crown ; so he took 
it by conquest or purchase. Still, though this is the first meaning 
of the word Conqueror, and the meaning in which the word 
was first applied to William, still it is quite true to call him 
William the Conqueror in the other sense also, for he did con- 
quer the land with the sword, and got it in no other way. 
And besides Wilklmus Conqucestor, we also in some old books 
find him called Willelnms Triumphator, and there can be no 
doubt at all what that means. " So you may very well call him 
William the Conqueror in either sense. The other is that at 
the time when he was crowned, he had not as yet conquered 
all the land by a great deal. But now he is crowned we must 
call him King William instead of Duke William, though you 
see that he had as yet possession only of the south-eastern 
part of the country, and it was a long time yet before he 
became really King over the whole land. Still he was the 
King, chosen, crowned and anointed, if not by the real will 
of the people like Harold, at any rate with their outward 



THE INTERREGNUM. 349 

consent. And no one ever was able to drive him out of the 
land, and the Crown of England has ever since been held by 
his descendants, though in the direct male line it did not go 
beyond his own sons. iVnd though William professed to hold 
the Crown, not by force of arms, but by right, and though it is 
quite a mistake to think that he tried to root out the old laws 
and language of England, yet very great changes in laws and 
language and everything else followed step by step after his 
coming in. It was not merely because the King himself was 
a stranger, but because he found means step by step to give 
all the greatest offices in the country to Normans and other 
strangers, and even to take away the lands of all the chief 
men of England and to give them to these strangers. And as 
the followers of William were not men of kindred speech like 
the followers of Cnut, but men whose speech and habits and 
feelings about everything were quite different from those of 
Englishmen, it is no wonder that quite a new state of things 
began mth his coming. In short, with the cro^vning of our 
first King who was altogether a stranger I say that our true 
Old-English History ends, and I will therefore end my story, 
at least for a while. 



INDEX. 



INDEX. 



Aachen, capital ot Charles the Great, 85. 
Abel, Patriarch of Jerusalem, Alfred sends 

an embassy to, 132. 
Adelhard of Llittich, Childmaster at Wal- 

tham, 272. 
^Ifgar, ^Ifric's son, his eyes put out by 

^thelred, 205. 

Alderman, at the battle of Sherstone, 

229. 

son of Leofric, Earl of the East- 
Angles, 263, 270, 275 ; makes war upon 
Edward, 276 ; outlawed, ib. ; restored to 
his earldom, 277 ; succeeds his father in 
his earldom, 279 ; again outlawed, 280 ; 
returns, ib.; gives his daughter to Gruf- 
fydd in marriage, ib.; date of his death, 
295- 

i^lfgifu, vEthelstan's sister, 146. 

mother of Swegen and Harold, 246. 

wife of King Eadwig, 169. 

iElfheah, Bishop of Winchester, persuades 

Dunstan to become a monk, 164. 
or Saint Alphege, 206 ; confirms Olaf, 

ib. ; made Archbishop of Canterbury', 

214 ; his martyrdom, 217 ; Saint An- 

selm's opinion of him, 220 ; his body 

translated to Canterbury, 240. 
iElfhelm, Earl of Deira, murdered by 

Eadric, 214, 246 ; his son's eyes put out, 

214. 
^Ifhere. Alderman of the Mercians, 183, 

184, 186. _ 
yElf hun, Bishop of London, 219. 
iElfmser, Archdeacon, betrays Canterbury 

to the Danes, 217. 

called Darling, 229. 

vElfnoth, Sheriff of Herefordshire, slain 

by the Welsh, 278. 
iElfric, Alderman of the Mercians, 190, 

205 ; his treason, 213. 

Alderman, killed at Assandun, 230. 

Archbishop, 243, 250, 251. 

kinsman of Godwine, see of Can- 
terbury refused to him, 259. 

^Ifsine made Archbishop of Canterbury, 

176 ; his death, ib. 
i^lfthryth, daughter of Alfred the Great, 
137- 



^Ifthryth, wife of Edgar, story of, 178 ; 

different versions of the story, 182. 
iElfwig, Abbot, King Harold's uncle, 326, 

328 ; killed, 337. 
^Ifwyn, daughter of yEtheMaed, 143. 
iElla. King of the Northumbrians, story 

of him and Ragnar Lodbrog, 108, 162. 
iEUandun, battle of, 97. 
iElle, first King of the South-Saxons, 34, 

317- 
iEscesdun (Ashdown), battle at, iir, 128. 
^thelbald, King of the Mercians, 75, 'j'j ; 

his death, 76. 

son of yEthelwulf, conspires against 

his father, 105 ; his reign, 106 ; married his 
father's widow, Judith, ib. ; his death, ib. 

iEthelberht, King of Kent and third Bret- 
walda, 45 ; he marries a daughter of 
Chanberht, ib. ; his conversion, 47. 

King of the East-Angles, murdered 

by Offa, 86 ; churches called after him, 
87. 

son of iEthelwulf, King of Kent, 106 ; 

his reign over Wessex and death, 107. 

^thelburh, daughter of iEthelberht, mar- 
ries Edwin, 55 ; driven out of IS orthum- 
berland, 59. 

wife of Ine of Wessex, 69 ; persuades 

her husband to forsake the world, 71. 

iEthelfiaed, daughter of Alfred, Lady of 
the Mercians, given in marriage to 
Alderman ^Ethelred, 125, 137 ; her forti- 
fications, 140, 143 ; her death and cha- 
racter, 143. 

wife of Edgar, 178. 

wife of Brihtnoth, 191. 

^thelfrith, King of the Northumbrians, 

defeats the Welsh at Chester, 50. 
^thelgifu, Alfred's daughter. Abbess of 

Shaftesbury^ 131, 137. 
^thelheard, King of the West-Saxons, 72, 

74, 75- 
iEthelhelm, Alderman of the Wilssetas, 

136 ; dies, 137. 
.^thelhun, "the proud Alderman," his 

bravery at the battle of Burford, 75. 
.^thelmaer, Alderman, submits to Swegen, 

223. 

A A 



354 



INDEX, 



uEthelnoth, Alderman, 136. 

Archbishop, 222, 239. 

^-Ethelred the First, 107 ; his battles, 11 1; 
his death, 112. 

the Second, 178, 182 ; proposed for 

the kingdom at his father's death, 183 ; 
chosen King, 189 ; his character, igo ; 
called the Unready^ ib. ; puts out the 
eyes of ^Elfric's son, 205 ; equips a fleet 
to repel the Danes, 207 ; harries Cum- 
berland and sends his fleet against Nor- 
mandy, 208 ; marries Emma, 210 ; flees 
to Normandy, 223 ; restored to the 
crown, 225 ; his death, 227. 

■ the Mickle or Big, father of Alfred's 

wife Ealhswyth, 116. 

Alderman of the Mercians, 125 ; Lon- 
don handed over by Alfred to, 133 ; 
defeats the Danes at Buttington, 136. 

iEthelric the Childmaster craves the body 
of Harold, 338. 

iEthelsige, Abbot of Ramsay, story of his 
vision, 307. 

yEthelstan, son of King Ecgberht, suc- 
ceeds ^thelwulf as King of Kent, 99. 

son of Edward, 145 ; his reign, 148 ; 

all the Princes of Britain submit to him, 
ih. ; his wars with the Welsh, 152 ; he 
fortifies Exeter, 153 ; his victory at 
Brunanburh, 153-158 ; his death, 158 ; 
his character, 159. 

son of ^thelred, 211, 233, 248. 

son of Tofig the Proud, 254. 

Bishop of Hereford, Saint ^thel- 

berht's minster built by, 277; hisdeath,z3. 

i^thelswyth, sister of Alfred, 103. 
i^thelthryth. Saint, patron of Ely, 241. 
i^thelwald, son of ^Ethelred, 138 ; rebels 
against Edward the Elder, 139 ; slain, ib. 

Alderman, 178 ; his legendary history, 

179-183 ; his battles, 183. 

Bishop of Winchester, favours the 

monks, 168, 177. 

vEthelwealh, first Christian King of the 
South-Saxons, 61. 

-<Ethelweard, son of Edward, 147. 

Alderman, his History, 167 ; advises 

giving money to the Danes, 190, 205 ; 
his mission to King Olaf, 206. 

son of iEthelwine, his death at Assan- 

dun, 231. 

iEthelwine, surnamed the Friend of God, 
Alderman of the East- Angles, favours the 
monks, 183. 

iEthelwulf, son of Ecgberht, made King of 
Kent, 97 ; succeeds Ecgberht as King of 
the West- Saxons, 99 ; gives his kingdom 
of Kent to his son ^Ethelstan, ib. ; his 
reign, 102 ; goes on a pilgrimage to Rome, 
104 ; marries Judith, daughter of Charles 
the Bald, ib. ; gives up to iEthelbald the 
kingdom of the West-Saxons, 105; his 
death, to6. 



iEthelwulf, Alderman, fights the Danes at 
Englefield, 11 1 ; killed at Reading, ib. 

Agatha, niece of the Emperor Henry the 
Second, wife of the iEtheling Edward, 
275. 

Agricola, Julius, his final conquest of Bri- 
tain, 17 ; the Orkneys found out by, ib. 

Aix-la-chapelle, French name for Aachen, 
85. 

Alan of Britanny at the battle of Senlac, 
329, 332.. 

Alban, Saint, abbey and town of, 21, 81 ; 
founded by Offa, 78. 

Alban's, Saint, Head, 69. 

Alcuin or Ealhwine, his favour with Charles 
the Great, 84, 86. 

Alderman [Ealdorman), the title of, 35, 
194. 

Alexander the Second, Pope, sends legates 
to England, 283 ; gives William a banner, 
303- 

Alfonso, King of Galicia, 329. 

Alfred the Great, his life by Asser, 103 ; 
adopted and hallowed by Pope Leo, 104 ; 
his battles in the time of ^thelred, 
III, 112 ; his reign, 113 ; compared with 
Saint Lewis, ib. ; his character, 114 ; story 
of him and his mother, 115; marries 
Ealhswyth, 116; gains the first English 
victory at sea, 118 ; he retreats to Athel- 
ney before the Danes, 120 ; story of the 
cakes, 121 ; his victory at Ethandun and 
peace at Wedmore, 123 ; story of his 
going into the Danish camp in disguise, 
126; story of Saint Cuthberht and, 127; 
his literary works, 130 ; his collection ojf 
laws, 131 ; his attention to religious mat- 
ters, ib. ; founds a monastery at Athelney, 
132 ; equips a fleet, ib. ; it is defeated, 
ib. ; repairs London, 133; his later wars, 
135; improves his ships, 136; dies, 137. 

the town-reeve of Bath, his death, 

140. 

^theling, conspires against ^2thel- 

stan, 150. 

• son of /Ethelred and Emma, put to 

death by Harold Harefoot, 248 ; Earl 
Godwine charged with his murder, 248, 
269. 

Alphege, Saint. See iElfheah. 

Anderida, taken by iElle and Cissa, 34. 

Andover, Olaf received at, by ^thelred, 
206. 

Angeln, i. 

Angles, begin to settle in . Britain, 30 ; 
give their name to the land, 32; their 
kingdoms in Britain, 37, 39. 

Anglesey, why so called, 55. 
Anglo-Saxon, meaning of the name, 31, 138. 
Anlaf, Danish Kings of the name in North- 
umberland, 151, 153, 162, 163. 
Anselm, Saint, his opinion of Saint 
iElfheah, 220. 



INDEX, 



355 



Antoninus Pius, Emperor, wall of, 20. 

Appledore, Alfred takes a fort at, 135. 

Archers, Norman, 327, 332, 336. 

Arminius, or Irmin, the deliverer of Ger- 
many, 22. 

Arnulf, Emperor, 134; his victory over the 
Northmen at Lowen, 135. 

Arthur, the Briton, resists the English, his 
victory at Badbury, 35. 

Arwald, King of the Jutes in Wight, 67 ; 
his sons murdered by Ceadwalla, 68. 

Aryan languages, why so called, 6. 

Ashdo\\Ti (-^scesdun), Alfred's battle at, 
III, 128. 

Assandun, battle of, 230 ; meaning of the 
name, ib. ; Cnut and Thurkill build a 
minster at, 239. 

Asser's Life of King Alfred, 93, 103, 131. 

Athelney, Alfred builds a fort at, 123 ; 
abbey founded by Alfred, 132. 

Augustine, Saint, his mission to Britain, 42 ; 
he preaches to ^thelbert, 45 ; his con- 
ference with the Welsh Bishops, 48 ; his 
Abbey, z3. 

Augustine's Oak, 48. 

Baeda, his Life and History'', 42, 50, 74 ; his 
History translated by Alfred, 130. 

Baldred, King of Kent, driven out by Ecg- 
berht, 97. 

Baldwin, first Count of Flanders, marries 
Judith, 107. 

the Second, Count of Flanders, marries 

Alfred's daughter ^Elfthr^^th, 137. 

■ ■ the Fifth, receives Emma, 249 ; also 

Gunhild, 255 ; the Emperor Henry 
wages war with, 256 ; Earl Godwine 
and Gytha take refuge with, 262 ; pleads 
for Earl God\\dne, 266; Earl Tostig 
takes refuge with, 296. 

Baldwinesland, Flanders so called, 107. 

Bamborough, lords of, 165. 

Bangor Iscoed, slaughter of the monks of, 
50. 

Barbarians, meaning of the word, 23. 

Bartholomew, Saint, Alfred's embassy to 
the Christians of, 132. 

Basing, Alfred's battle at, 112. 

Basques, the, 6. 

Bath, taken by Ceawlin, 36 ; Edgar crowned 
at, 175 ; Swegen acknowledged King at, 
223. 

Battle. See Senlac. 

Abbey, the Chronicle of, 321 ; founded 

by William, 332 ; position of the high 
altar at, t'd. 

Bayeux, Bishoprick of, 142 ; Danish lan- 
guage survives at, 142, 210; tapestry of, 
289, 320, 336. _ 

Beavers in Britain, 251. 

Benedict Biscop, Abbot of Wearmouth, 74. 

the Tenth, Pope, gives the pallium to 

Stigand, 281. 



Beorhtric, King of the West-Saxons, 90 ; 

poisoned by his Queen, 93. 
Beorhtwald, first English Archbishop of 

Canterbur^^, 73. 
Beorhtwulf, King of the Mercians, defeated 

by the Danes, 102. 
Beorn, King Edmund's huntsman, legend 

of, 108. 
Gytha's nephew, slain by Swegen, 

257- 

Beornicia, division of Northumberland, 38 ; 

made a separate Earldom by Edgar, 174 ; 

gets the name of Northumberland, zd 
Beornred, King of the Mercians, 80, 82. 
Beornwulf, King of the jNIercians, drives 

out Ceolwulf, 88, 96 ; killed by the East- 
Angles, 98. 
Berengar, King of Italy, 134. 
Berkhampstead, Edgar and others submit 

to William at, 346. 
Beverege, island in the Severn, 251. 
Billingsley, peace made between GruiFydd 

and Harold at, 277. 
Birinus, Bishop, Wessex converted by, 61. 
Bleddvn, brother of Gruftydd, King of 

Wales, 286. 
Boadicea, revolt of, 16. 
Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy trans- 
lated b^^ Alfred, 130. 
Boniface, Saint, Aposde of Germany, 62, 



Bosham, 



, 262. 



, Godwine sails from, 

Boso, King of Burgundy, 133. 

Boulogne, Danes sail from, to England, 135. 

Bradford-on-Avon, battle of, 65. 

Bramsbury, fortified by ^thelflasd, 140. 

Brecknock, taken b^'- ^thelflaed, 143. 

Brentford, Edmund's victor^' at, 229. 

Bretwalda, meaning of the word, 40 ; ana- 
logy of with the Emperors, 96. 

Brevis Relatio, the, an account of the 
Norman Conquest, 321. 

Brice, Saint, massacre of, 211. 

Bp^ide-ale, meaning of the word, 262. 

Brihthelm, Bishop of Somersetshire, refused 
the see of Canterbur>^, 176. 

Brihtmser, surnamed Budde, 241. 

Brihtnoth, Alderman of the East-Saxons, 
183 ; his death at Maldon, 191 ; his cha- 
racter, ib. ; Ely Abbey partly founded by, 
ib. 

Brihtric, brother of Eadric, accuses Wulf- 
noth, 215. 

Bristol, Harold sets sail from, 262, 285. 

Britain, the name the same as Brittany, i ; 
force of the name Great Britain, ib. ; why 
called England, 2 ; character of its early 
inhabitants, 7, 8 ; how conquered by the 
Romans, 9-15 ; a Roman province, 16-21 ; 
Roman remains in, 17 ; how it became 
England, 21-31 ; foundation of the Eng- 
lish kingdoms in, 32-41 ; English con- 
quest of, 32. 

A A 2 



356 



INDEX. 



Brittany, language of, 5 ; Harold's cam- 
paign in, 289. 

Broken Tower, submission of Kent to 
Duke William at, 343. 

Bromton's Chronicle, 178. 

Bruges,_ Emma takes refuge at, 249 ; also 
Gunhild, 255 ; Swegen, 257 ; Godwine, 
262 ; Tostig, 296. 

Brunanburh, battle of, 154 ; song of, 155. 

Buonaparte, Napoleon, 209. 

Burford, battle of, 75, 330. 

Burgundy, kingdom of, 24; many mean- 
ings of the name, 134. 

Burhred, King of the Mercians, 103, 109 ; 
runs away from bis kingdom, 117. 

Bury Saint Edmund's, monastery of, 223, 
224. 

Cadiz, or Gades, when founded, 11. 

Caedmon, the first Christian poet in Eng- 
land, 74. 

Caed walla. King of the Strathclyde Welsh, 
defeats and kills Edwin, 59, 

Caerleon, places so called, 50, 120 : British 
Archbishoprick, 21. 

Caesar, Caius Julius, invades Britain, 13, 

Caius Julius Octavianus, first Augus- 
tus, 14. 

— — Caius, called Caligula, threatens to 

invade Britain, 14. 
Calixtus, Saint, battle of Senlac fought on 

his day, 328. 
Calne, meeting of the Wise Men at, 184. 
Canons, Chrodegang's rule for, 282. 
Canterbury, meaning of the name, 34; 

Augustine preaches at, 47 ; taken by the 

Danes, 217 ; submits to William, 343. 
Caradoc, or Caractacus, resists the Romans, 

15- 

son of Gruffydd of South Wales, kills 

Harold's workmen at Portskewet, 293. 

Carham, battle of, 244. 

Carthage, a Phoenician colony, 11 ; capital 

of the Vandals, 24. 
Castles, the building of, introduced into 

England, 259. 
Ceadda or Chad, Saint, Bishop of Lichfield, 

6r. 
Cead walla. King of the West- Saxons, his 

character, 67 ; murders Arwald's sons, 

68 ; baptized by Pope Sergius, ib. ; his 

death, 69. 
Ceawlin, King of the West-Saxons and 

Bretwalda, his victories over the Welsh, 
^36; 

Celtic languages, their extent, 5. 
Cenhelm. See Kenelm. 
Cenwealh, King of the West-Saxons, his 

victories, 61, 65. 
Cenwulf, King of the Mercians, his vic- 
tories, 98. 
Ceolred, King of the IMercians, defeated 

by Ine at Wanborough, 70. 



Ceolwujf, King of the Mercians, driven 
out by Beornwulf, 87, 88, 96. 

made King of the Mercians by the 

Danes, 118, 120, 

Cerdic, founds the kingdom of the West- 
Saxons, 35 ; nearly all the Kings of 
England descended from, ib. ; Edward 
the Confessor the last King in the male 
line, 297. 

Charlemagne, French name of Charles the 
Great, 333. 

Charles the Bald, King of the West-Franks 
and Emperor, 104. 

the Fat, Emperor, 133 ; deposed, 134. 

the Great, King of the Franks and 

Emperor, his greatness, 81, 83; Queen 
Eadburh repairs to, 94; succeeded by 
Lewis the Pious, 104; division of his 
dominions, 104, 133. 

the Simple, King of the West-Franks, 

brother-in-law of Edward the Elder, 141 ; 
deposed, 146. 

Chester, force of the name, 50 ; iEthelfrith 
defeats the Welsh near, ib. ; Edgar's 
triumph at, 175 ; Ealdgyth, widow of 
Harold, sent thither, 341. 

Chichester, see of Selsey moved to, 62. 

Christina, daughter of Edward and Agatha, 
275, 278. 

Chrodegang, Bishop of Metz, his rule for 
Canons, 282. 

Chronicles, English, 32. 

Churl, meaning of the word, 41. 

Cirencester, taken by Ceawlin, 36 ; stay of 
the Danes at, 125. 

Cissa, invasion of, 34, 317. 

Civil war, meaning of, 14. 

Claudius, Emperor, visits Britain, 15. 

Cleobury, defeat of Bishop Leofgar at, 
278. 

Cnut, son of Swegen, 222 ; true form of 
the name, ib. ; chosen King by the 
Danish fleet, 224 ; driven out of England, 
225 ; returns and wars with Edmund, 
2^6 ; chosen King by the English at 
Southampton, 227 ; his wars with Ed- 
mund, 229-231 ; makes peace with Ed- 
mund at Olney, 231 ; tale of their single 
combat, ib. ; finally chosen and crowned, 
234 ; sends Edmund's sons to Sweden, 
235 ; stories about Eadric and, 236 ; 
his marriage with Emma, 237 ; murders 
Earl Ulf, 238 ; he and Thurkill build a 
minster at Assandun, 239 ; grants a 
charter to Glastonbury Abbey, ib. ; 
translates the body of Saint ^Elf heah to 
Canterbury, 240; story about his re- 
buking the sea, ib. ; his visits to Ely 
Abbey, 240, 241 ; his pilgrimage to 
Rome, 242 ; his letter from thence to the 
people of England, 243 ; his Code of 
Laws, 244 ; brings Scotland to submis- 
sion, ib. ; his death, 246 ; his campaign 



INDEX. 



357 



against London contrasted with Wil- 
liam's, 340, 345. 

Cnut's Law renewed by Harold, 296. 

Coifi, high priest of Woden, his argument 
against his idols, 57 ; he destroys the 
temple at Godmundingham, 58. 

Cologne, French name of Koln, 276. 

Colonies planted by the Phoenicians, 10. 

C-omet, appearance of, in 1066, 300. 

Compurgation, meaning of, 250. 

Conan, Count of the Bretons, expedition of 
William and Harold against, 289. 

Conqueror, sense in which William was 
first so called, 348. 

Conrad the Second, Emperor, Cnut pre- 
sent at his coronation, 242. 

Constantine, the first Christian Emperor, 
first proclaimed in Britain, 21. 

the Sixth, Emperor, deposed, 84. 

King of Scots, does homage to vEthel- 

stan, 148 ; shelters Guthfrith, 151, 152 ; 
defeated at Brunanburh, 153. 

Corfes Gate, 184 ; Edward the Martyr 

murdered at, 185. 
Cornwall, boundary and language of, 153, 

263 ; practice of wrecking in, 288 ; Ro- 
bert of Mortain, Earl of, 330. 
Coutances, peninsula of, 210. 
Coventry minster built by Earl Leofric, 

279. 
Cromlechs, 7. 
Crewland Abbey founded by ^thelbald of 

Mercia, 78 ; its destruction by the Danes, 

no. 
Cun^berland, ravaged by ^Ethelred, 207. 
Cumbra, Alderman, murdered by Sigeberht, 

76. 
Cuthberht, Saint, and King Alfred, story of, 

127. 
Cuthred, King of the West- Saxons, defeats 

the Mercians at Burford, 75 ; his death, 

76. 
Cwenthryth, daughter of Cenwulf, charged 

with the murder of her brother Cenhelm, 

Cwichelm seeks to slay Edwin, 56 ; first 
Christian King of the West-Saxons, 61. 

Cyneberht, Abbot, baptizes the sons of 
Arwald, 68. 

Cynegils, first Christian King of the West- 
Saxons, 61. 

Cyneheard, Cynewulf killed by, 89. 

Bishop of the Sumorsaetas, 177. 

C3mesige, Bishop of Lichfield, brings back 

Eadwig to the banquet, 170. 

Archbishop of York, hallows the 

minster at Waltham, 281. 

Cynethryth, mother of Archbishop Dun- 

stan, 164. 
wdfe of Offa, murders iEthelberht of 

East-Anglia, 86. 
Cynewulf, King of the West- Saxons, his 

victories over the Welsh, 76 ; defeated 



by Offa at Bensington, 82 ; killed by 
Cyneheard, 89. 
Cynric, son of Cerdic, 35. 

Danegeld, meaning of, 207 ; laid on, 238, 

250. 
Danes, _ their language, 6 ; beginning of 
their invasions, 91 ; three periods of their 
invasions, 92 ; wars with Charles the 
Great, 96 ; wars with Ecgberht, 99 ; 
winter in Sheppey, 102 ; their ravages in 
-^thelberht's reign, 107 ; great invasion 
in -^thelred's reign, 108 ; their settle- 
ments in Northumberland, Mercia, and 
East-Anglia, 109; divide Northumber- 
land among them, ir8 ; divide the king- 
dom with Alfred, 125; submit to Edward, 
144 ; their invasions begin again, 187, 
191 ; their relations with the Empire, 
189 ; their settlement in Cumberland, 
207 ; massacred by ^thelred, 211 ; take 
Canterbury, 217; settle in England 
under Cnut, 239. 
Dannewerk, made by Gorm and Thyra, 

188. 
David's, Saint, ravaged by Eadric,. 221. 
Deerhurst, church of, built by Odda, 263 ; 

Odda dies there, 278. 
Deira, Division of Northumberland, 38 ; 
Pope Gregory's pun on the name, 44 ; 
made an Earldom by Edgar, 174. 
Denewulf, Bishop, legend of, 121. 
Deorham, battle of, 36. 
Dermot, King of Leinster, receives Harold 

and Leofwine, 262. 
Devonshire, conquered by Ecgberht, 96 ; 

traces of the Welsh in, 152. 
Diuma, the Scot, first Bishop of the Mer- 
cians, 61. 
Dorchester, Oxfordshire, foundation of 

the Bishoprick of, 61 ; extent of, 259. 
Dover, outrages of Eustace at, 260 ; castle 
of, built by Harold, 342 ; surrenders to 
William, tb. 
Dragon, golden, the ensign of Wessex, 75, 

230, 330. 
Drogo, Count of Mantes, 259, 260. 
Dublin, Harold takes refuge at, 262. 
Duduc, Saxon Bishop of Somersetshire, 

282. 
Dufnal, Prince, 175. 
Duncan, Under-king of Cumberland, 244 ; 

killed by jMacbeth, 273. 
Dunstan, Archbishop, sketch of his life, 
164, 168, 177; King Eadred's chief 
minister, 165 ; driven out of the Kingdom 
by Eadwig, 167, 170 ; recalled by Edgar, 
170; his influence in Edward the Mar- 
tyr's reign, 184 ; in that of /Ethelred 
the Second, 190 ; his death, ib. 
Durham, the Bishoprick of, 174 ; the city 
besieged by Malcolm, 214. 



35S 



INDEX. 



Eaba, first Christian Queen of the South- 
Saxons, 6i. 

Eadbald, King of the Kentishmen, for- 
sakes and returns to Christianity, 6i. 

Eadberht, King of the Northumbrians, 
takes Alcluyd, 77 ; his friendship with 
Pippin, ib. 

_ Pren, King of the Kentishmen, taken 

prisoner by Cenwulf, 87. 

Eadburh, wife of Beorhtric of Wessex, 90 ; 
story of, 93. 

daughter of Edward the Elder, story 

of, 146. 

Eadgifu, daughter of Edward the Elder, 
marries Charles the Simple, 141, 146. 

her sister, married to Lewis, King ot 

Provence, 146. 

Abbess of Leominster, her misconduct, 

257- 

Eadgyth. See Edith. 

Eadhild, King ^thelstan's sister, married 
to Hugh the Great, 146, 159. 

Eadmund. See Edmund. 

Eadnoth, Bishop of Dorchester, translates 
/Elfheah, 219 ; slain at Assandun, 231. 

Eadnoth, Bishop of London, dies, 137. 

Eadred, King, 145 ; his reign, 165 ; his 
death, 166. 

Eadric Streona, favourite of ^Ethelred, 
212; marries his daughter Edith, ib.; 
murders ^If helm, 214 ; made Alderman 
of the Mercians, ib. ; betrays yEthel- 
red's army, 217 ; harries Saint David's, 
221 ; murders Sigeferth and Morkere, 
225 ; joins Cnut, 226 ; his treason at Sher- 
stone, 229; joins Edmund, ib.; flees at 
Assandun, 230 ; different accounts of his 
death, 236. 

Eadsige, Archbishop of Canterbury, 259. 

Eadwig, son of Edmund, 165 ; his reign, 

166 ; drives Dunstan out of the kingdom, 

167 ; marries iElfgifu, 169 ; revolt against, 
170; separated from ^Elfgifu, ib. ; his 
death, 171. 

brother of Edmund Ironside, 233, 234. 

King of the Churls, 235. 

Eadwine. See Edwin. 
Eadwulf of Bamborough, 148. 

Uhtred's brother. Earl of Bernicia, 

227 ; killed by Siward, 274. 

Ealdgyth, Sigeferth's widow, married to 
Edmund Ironside, 225, 233. 

daughter of ^Ifgar, given in marriage 

to GrufFydd, 280 ; marries King Harold, 
300, 319 ; sent by Edwin and Morkere to 
Chester, 341. 

Ealdhelm, first Bishop of Sherborne, 69, 74. 

first Bishop of Wells, 147. 

Ealdhun, first Bishop of Durham, 215. 
Ealdonnan (Alderman), the title of, 35, 

165, 194. 
Ealdred, son of Eadwulf of Bamborough, 
148. 



Ealdred, Abbot of Tavistock, becomes 
Bishop of Worcester, 256 ; persuades the 
King to "in-law" Swegen, 258 ; sent after 
Earl Godwine's two sons> 262 ; his em- 
bassy to Germany, 275, 276, 278 ; makes 
peace with Gruffydd, 278 ; hallows 
Gloucester minster, 280 ; goes on a pil- 
grimage to Jerusalem, 281 ; succeeds 
Cynesige as Archbishop of York, ib. ; 
goes to Rome for his pallium, 283 ; 
consecrates Wulfstan, 284 ; crowns Ha- 
rold, 299 ; helps to choose Edgar, 341 ; 
submits to William, 346 ; crowns him, 

347- 
Ealdwulf, the only Archbishop of Lichfield, 

83. 

Ealhmund, father of Ecgberht, 94. 

Ealhstan, Bishop of Sherborne, his war- 
like exploits, 97, 102, 103 ; conspires 
against /Ethelwulf, 105 ; his death, 108. 

Ealhswith marries Alfred the Great, 116; 
dies, 139. 

Eanwulf, Alderman of the Sumorssetas, 
102 ; conspires against /Ethelwulf, 105 ; 
his death, 108. 

Earl, first meaning of the word, 41, 155 ; 
Danish use the same as Alderman, 157, 
165, 236. 

East- Angles, foundation of the kingdom of, 
38 ; invite Ecgberht's help against the 
Mercians, 97, 98 ; make peace with the 
Danes, 109 ; conquered by the Danes, 
ib. ; nature of the conquest, no; the 
land divided, 125 ; East-Anglian Danes 
help Hasting against Alfred, 135, 136 ; 
their wars with Edward the Elder, 139 ; 
their treaty with him, 139, 140; submit 
to Edward the Elder, 144 ; inclined to 
Danes in iEthel red's time, 213 ; retain 
their own meeting of Wise Men, ib. ; 
extent of their Earidom, 280 ; join Harold 
at Senlac, 318. 

East-Saxons, foundation of the kingdom 
of, 38 ; submit to Ecgberht, 97. 

Ecgberht, King of the West-Saxons, 
banished, 92 ; elected King, 93 ; his con- 
quests, 95 ; comparison with Charles the 
Great, ib. ; wars with the Welsh, 96 ; 
with Mercia, 97, 98 ; Northumberland 
submits to him, 98 ; becomes lord of all 
the English and Southern Welsh, 99 ; his 
wars with the Danes, ib. 

King in Northumberland under the 

Danes, 109. 

Ecgfrith, King of the Northumbrians, 
drives out Wilfrith, 62. 

King of the Mercians, 87. 

Ecgvvyn, mother of vEthelstan, 150. 
Edgar, son of Edmund, 165, 166 ; chosen 

Kmg, 170; his prosperous reign, 171; 
charge against him of encouraging 
foreigners, 173 ; his friendship with 
the Emperor Otto, ib, ; surnamed the 



INDEX. 



359 



Peaceful, 173 ; his doings in the north of 
England, z'<^. ; hallowed as King, 175 ; his 
titjes, ib. ; story about him and Kenneth 
King of Scots, 176 ; favours the monks, 
177 ; his death, 178; story of ^Ifthryth 
and, ib. ; different versions of the story, ib. 

Edgar, son of Edward and Agatha, 275, 
278, 298, 299; chosen King, 341, 344; 
submits to William, 346. 

" Edgar's law," renewal of, 241, 296. 

Edinburgh founded by Edwin, 38, 174. 

Edith, daughter of Edward the Elder, 
marries Otto the Great, 146, 173. 

Saint, daughter of Edgar, 178. 

daughter of ^Ethelred, marries Ead- 

ric, 247. 

daughter of Earl Godwine, 247 ; mar- 
ries Edward the Confessor, 254; sent to 
Wherwell monastery, 263 ; returns, 268 ; 
murders Gospatric, 294 ; favours Tos- 
tig against Harold, 344 ; pays tribute to 
William for Winchester, 345. 

Sivannesfiahy finds the bodj^ of Har- 
old, 339. 

Edmund, King of the East-Angles, mar- 
tyred by the Danes, 110; legend of his 
vengeance on Swegen, 223. 

the -Magnificent, his exploits at 

Brunanburh, 155 ; succeeds ^thelstan as 
King, 162 ; his wars with the Danes, 
163 ; his conquest of Cumberland, ib. ; 
murdered, ib. 

• son of Edgar, 179, 182. 

Ironside, son of ^thelred, 211; mar- 
ries Ealdg^'th, 225 ; his wars with Cnut, 
226 ; chosen King, 227 ; his battles with 
Cnut, 229, 230 ; divides the kingdom with 
Cnut, 231 ; his death, 232. 

son of Edmund Ironside, 235, 275. 

Edward the Elder, chosen King, 138 ; first 

lord of all Britain, ib. ; his wars vvith the 
Danes, 139, 144 ; his fortresses, 140 ; all 
the princes of Britain submit to him, 
145 ; his death, ib. ; his children, ib. 

the martyr, son of Edgar and ^thei- 

flaed, 178; chosen King, 183; story of 
his death, 185. 

son of Edmund Ironside, 235, 275 ; 

comes to England, 278 ; his oeath, 279. 

the Confessor, son of ^Ethelred and 

Emma, 223 ; recalled by Harthacnut, 
251 : chosen King, 253 : his fondness for 
Normans, 254 ; his dealings with his 
mother, 254, 265 ; his monastery at 
Westminster, 271; his fondness for Tos- 
tig, 296 ; leaves the crown to Harold, 
297 ; his death, ib. 

the First after the Conquest), his 

dealings with the Scots and Welsh, 
145 ; his body rests awhile in Waltham 
Abbey, 339. 

Edwin, Bretwalda and first Christian King 
oi the Northumbrians, 50 ; story of his 



conversion, 52-59 ; killed b^' Csedwalla 
and Penda at Heathfield, 59. 

Edwin, son of Edward the Elder, 147 ; 
stor3'- of, 160. 

Earl, son of ^Ifgar, Earl of the Mer- 
cians, 295 ; joins the Northumbrian re- 
volt, ib. ; drives Tostig from Lindesey, 
304 ; defeated at Fulford, 306 ; fails to 
support Harold, 3 19 ; betrays Edgar, 
341, 342. 

Eglaf, brother of Thurkill, invades Eng- 
land, 216. 

Eirene, deposes her son Constantine the 
Sixth, 84. 

Elbe, lands near, first seats of the English, 
I, 8. 

Elizabeth, wife of Harold Hardrada, left 
in Shetland, 305. 

Ely Abbey, foundation of, 191 ; Brihtnoth 
buried at, ib. ; Cnut's visit to, 240 ; the 
^Etheling Alfred murdered at, 249. 

Emma, daughter of Richard the Fearless, 
marries ^Ethelred, 210 ; sent into Nor- 
mand3",223 ; marries Cnut, 238 ; regent 
for Harthacnut, 247 ; driven out by Ha- 
rold, 249; recalled by Harthacnut, 251 ; 
spoiled by Edward, 254 ; her death and 
legend, 265. 

" Emma," Harold of Norway's coat of 
mail so called, 314. 

Emperor, origin of the title, 14 ; break in 
their succession, 134 ; English Kings 
why so called, 139. 

Emperors, Eastern, 24, 83 ; supplanted 
by the French, 85 ; keep Scandinavian 
mercenaries in pay, 335. 

Empire, Roman, continued in the East, 
24, 83 ; transferred to the Franks, 85 ; 
united with the crowns of Germany and 
Italy, 134, 

England, why so called, i, 31 ; nomen- 
clature of, 26. 

Engletield, Danes defeated at, in. 

English, their conquest of Britain, 14 ; their 
character, and difference from other Teu- 
tonic conquests, 27 ; their true name, 31 ; 
remain heathens in Britain, 42 ; their 
conversion to Christianity, 42-50. 

English language, its relations to other 
tongues, 2-5 ; a Teutonic language, 25 ; 
its relations to German and French, ib. 

Ereri, Welsh name of Snowdon, 98. 

Eric Eoric , Danish King of East-Anglia, 
death of, 139. 

son of Harold Blaatand, his short 

reign in Northumberland, 165. 

King of Swedes, drives out Swegen, 

206. 

Earl of Northumberland under Cnut, 

227, 236. 

Erling, Earl of Orkney, joins Harold 

Hardrada, 305 
Escheat, law of, 282. 



36o 



INDEX, 



Esegar the Staller, grandson of Tofig the 
Proud, commands the Londoners at 
Senlac, 346 ; his wounds there, ib. ; his 
dealings with WilHam, ib. 

Estrith, daughter of Swegen, marries Ulf, 
247. 

Ethandun, Alfred's victor^'- at, 122-124. 

Eustace, Count of Boulogne, marries God- 
gifu, 260 ; his outrages at Dover, ib. ; 
helps to kill Harold when wounded, 336. 

Exeter, taken and retaken in Alfred's wars, 
119, 120; meaning of the name, 119; 
greatness of, 120 ; Welsh expelled from, 
by iEthelstan, 152 ; fortified by iEthel- 
stan, ib. ; his laws published at, 143, 
159 ; the Danes beaten off by the citizens, 
211 ; marriage-gift of Emma, 212 ; be- 
trayed to Swegen, ib. ; Bishoprick of, 
founded, 251. 

Exmouth, Beorn murdered at, 257. 

Eyder, boundary ol Germany and Den- 
mark, 96, 188. 

Eystein Orre, legend of his exploits at 
Stamfordbridge, 311, 315. 

Fins, their language, 6. 

Five Boroughs, recovered by Edmund, 
162 ; submit to Swegen, 221 ; their 
Thanes murdered by Eadric, 225 ; occu- 
pied by Edmund Ironside, 226. 

Florence of Worcester, his chronicle, 218. 

Fortification, advance in, under iEthelstan. 
152. 

Frsena, Danish Earl, killed at Ashdown, 
III, 112. 

Thane of Lindesey, his cowardice, 

205. 

France, called from the Franks, 24 ; be- 
ginning of the modern kingdom of, 105 ; 
descent of the later Kings of, 134 ; old 
boundaries of, 209 ; conquests of, from 
German}^ and Burgundy, ib. 

Francia, meaning of name, 210 ; mer- 
cenaries from, at Senlac, 329. 

Franks, their territories in Germany and 
Gaul, 24 ; countries called from them, ib. ; 
iEthelberht marries a Frankish princess, 
45 ; their language, 46 ; their Kings and 
Dukes help the English missionaries in 
Germany, 73 ; their povver in Italy, 84 ; 
their Kings become Kings of all Ger- 
many, 85 ; kingdoms of the East and 
West, 105 ; united under Charles the 
Fat, 133 ; finally divided, 134. 

French language, origin of, 25 ; not known 
in the time of Charles the Great, 85 ; 
beginnings of, 105 ; supplants German in 
Gaul, 141 ; adopted by the Normans, 
142, 209. 

Frirek, banner-bearer of Harold Hard- 
rada, 312. 

Frisians, in Alfred's service, 136 ; their 
connexion with the English, 137. 



Fulford, battle of, Harold Hardrada de- 
feats Edwin and Morkere at the, 306. 

Gainsborough, Swegen receives submission 

at, 221 ; dies at, 224. 
Gallia, meaning of name, 210. 
Gamel murdered by Tostig, 294. 
Gaul, conquest of, by Csesar, 13. 
Geoffrey, Bishop of Coutances, his share 

in William's coronation, 347. 
Gerent, Welsh King, his wars with Ine, 

German language, its relations to English, 
3, 25 ; spoken by Charles the Great. 85 ; 
spoken by the West-Frankish Kings, 
105 ; dies out in Gaul, 141, 209. 

Germany not conquered by the Romans, 
22 ; English missionaries in, 62 ; first 
united by Charles the Great, 83 ; end of 
the kingdom, 85 ; separation from France 
and Lorraine, 105 ; Italy united to, 134. 
• Gilbert, Count, guardian of William the 
Conqueror, 264. 

Gillingham, Edward the Confessor chosen 
King at, 253. 

Giraldus Cambrensis, his account of 
Harold's campaign, 286. 

Gisa, Bishop of Somersetshire, conse- 
crated at Rome, 281 ; his, quarrel with 
Earl Harold, 282 ; his changes at Wells, 
ib. 

Gisela, Queen of the Hungarians, 235. 

Glass, in windows, introduced into England 
by Benedict Biscop, 74. 

Glastonbury, Arthur buried at, 35 ; be- 
comes English, 66 ; legend of Alfred at, 
127 ; Dunstan, Abbot of, 164; Edmund the 
Magnificent buried at, ib. ; Edgar buried 
at, 178 ; Edmund Ironside buried at, 
233 ; Cnut's visit and charter to, 239 ; 
two churches at, 240. 

Gloucester taken by CeawIIn, 36 ; meetings 
held at, 255, 260, 268, 284,. 285 ; armies 
gathered at, 277-285 ; minster hallowed 
by Ealdred, 280. 

Gloucestershire, speech of, 37 ; traces of 
the Welsh in, 258. 

Goda, Devonshire Thane, killed at Wat- 
chet, 190. 

Godgifu, daughter of ^thelred and Emma, 
marries Drogo, 259 ; her son Ralph, ib. ; 
marries Eustace, 260. 

wife of Leofric, legend of, 279 ; her 

building of churches, ib. ; her great age, 
ib. ; her reverence for St. Wulfstan, 284. 

Godwine, T'hant of Lindesey, his coward- 
ice, 205. 

Alderman of Lindesey, killed at As- 

sandun, 230. 

Earl of the West-Saxons, 239 ; his 

exploits in the North, 242, 247 ; supports 
Harthacnut against Harold, 246 ; go- 
verns in Wessex for Harthacnut, 247 ; 



INDEX. 



361 



marries Gytha, 247 ; question as to his 
father, 247, 24S ; his favour with the 
yEtheUng yEthelstan, 248 ; with Cnut, 
ib.; charged with the murder of the 
-^thehng Alfred, 249 : unhkehhood of 
the story, ib. ; sent to dig up the body of 
Harold, 250 ; makes compurgation for 
the murder of Alfred, ib. ; sent against 
Worcester, 251 ; promotes the election of 
Edward, 253 ; becomes his chief adviser, 
254 ; opposes the Normans, ib. ; helps to 
despoil Emma, ib. ; proposes to help Swe- 
gen, 256 ; refuses to punish the men of 
Dover, 261 : gathers a force at Bever- 
stone, ib. ; demands justice against Eus- 
tace, ib. ; outlawed by the Wise ]Men at 
London, 262 ; takes refuge at Bruges, ib. ; 
sets sail from Bruges, 266 ; reaches 
London, 267 ; demands restoration, ib. ; 
is restored by the Wise Men, 268 ; dies 
at Wmchester. ib. ; legend of his death, 
269 ; his character, 270 ; the power of his 
house, 280. 

Gorm the Old unites Denmark in one 
kingdom, 188 ; his wars with Henry the 
Fowler, ib. 

Gospatric murdered by Tostig and Edith, 

Goths, East, Theodoric King of, reigns in 
Italy, 24 ; West, under Alaric, take 
Rome, ib. ; their kingdom in Spain and 
Aquitaine, ib. 

Greeks, 9 ; their colonies, 11 ; later, called 
themselves Romans, 24 ; Greek language, 
its connexion with English, 9 ; spoken in 
the Eastern Empire, 85 ; ignorance of, 
in the West, 130. 

Greenland discovered by the Northmen, 

,91- . 
Greenwich, Saint ^Ifheah martyred at, 

220 ; Thurkill's fleet lies at, 223. 
Gregory the Great, Pope, 43 ; storj^ of, and 

the^ English boys, 45 ; sends Augustine to 

Britain, ib.; his works translated by 

Alfred, 130. 

supposed son of Edward the Elder, 

147- 

the Seventh, Pope. See Hildebrand. 

Grimbald, of Flanders, encouraged by 

Alfred, 131. 

Gruach, wife of Macbeth, 273. 

Grufifydd ap Llywelyn, King of North- 
Wales, in alliance with Swegen against 
Gruffydd of South- Wales, 257 ; invades 
Herefordshire and defeats the French, 
265 ; joins iElfgar and defeats Ralph, 
276 ; burns Hereford, 277 ; flies before 
Harold, ib. ; peace made with, ib. ; rebels 
again, and defeats Leofgar, 278 ; submits 
again, ib. ; helps ^Ifgar, 280 ; marries 
his daughter Ealdg^'th, ib. ; Harold's 
great campaign against, 285 ; deposed 
and killed by his own people, 286 ; his 



head sent to Edward, 286. ; date of his 
death, 287. 

Gruffyd ap Rhydderch, King of South- 
Wales, defeated by Swegen, 257 ; joins 
the Danes, invades Gloucestershire, and 
defeats Bishop Ealdred, 258 ; killed by 
Gruff"ydd of North Wales, 293. 

Guildford, the iEtheling Alfred seized at 
249. 

Gunhild, daughter of Harold Blaatand, 
killed in the massacre of St. Brice, 21T. 

daughter of Cnut and Emma, 238 ; 

marries Henry the Third, 245. 

— : — niece of Cnut, banished, 255 ; her 
husbands and children, ib. 

Guthfrith or Godfrey, Danish King of 
Northumberland, driven out by ^thel- 
stan, 148 ; his wars with .^thelstan, 151, 
T52. 

Guthmund, Norwegian chief, at the battle 
of Maldon, 191 ; money paid to, 205. 

Guthorm, Danish King of East-Anglia, 
invades Wessex, 119 ; baptized, and 
makes peace with Alfred, 123-125 ; his 
second war with Alfred, 132 ; confounded 
with iEthelstan, 159. 

Guy, Count of Ponthieu, imprisons Ha- 
rold, 288 ; gives him up to William, 289. 

Bishop of Amiens, his ' ' Carmen de 

Bello Hastingensi," 320 ; his account of 
William's coronation, 346. 

Gyrth, fourth son of Godwine, takes refuge 
at Bruges, 262 ; William's offer to, 322 ; 
his advice to Harold, 325 ; marches to 
Senlac, 326 ; Norman stories of, 328 ; 
killed by William's own hand, 334. 

Gytha, sister of Ulf, marries Godwine, 
247 ; takes refuge at Bruges, 262 ; legend 
of her and Harold, 323 ; asks for Ha- 
rold's body, 338. 

daughter of Osgod Clapa, marries 

Tofig, 251. 

Hadrian, Emperor, visits Britain, 20 ; his 
wall, 20, 83, 

Pope, his dealings with Ofifa, 83. 

Hakon, King of Norway, called ^-Ethel- 

stan's Foster, 159. 

the Doughty Earl, marries Gunhild, 

255 ; banished and drowned, ib. 
Halfdene, Danish King at Ashdown, 11 1 ; 

divides the lands of Northumberland, 1 18. 
Hampshire, origin of the name, 107. 
Harold Hardrada, King of the Northmen, 

256 ; meaning of his surname, ib. ; his 
exploits in the East, 305 ; his war with 
Swegen, ib. ; his invasion of England, 
ib. ; lands at Riccall, ib. ; prodigies at- 
tending his voyage, 306 ; defeats Edwin 
and ivlorkere at Fulford, ib. ; receives 
hostages from York and Yorkshire, ib. ; 
encamps at Stamfordbridge, ib. ; de- 
feated and slain by Harold of England, 



362 



INDEX. 



310 ; legend of his interview with Harold 

of England, 313 ; of his death, 315. 
Harold, Danish Earl, killed at Ashdown, 

III, 112. 
Blaatand, King of the Danes, 165 ; 

nis dealings with Normandy, 189, 210 ; 

with Northumberland, ib.\ does homage 

to Otto the Second, and is baptized, ib. ; 

deposed by his son Swegen, 189. 

son of Cnut, 238 ; reigns north of the 

Thames, 247 ; chosen King over all Eng- 
land, 249 ; dies at Oxford, zb. ; buried at 
Westminster, zb. 

Earl, husband of Gunhild, 255. 

son of Ralph, Ewias Harold called 

from, 279. 

second son of Godwine, 247, 248 ; Earl 

of the East- Angles, 257 ; refuses to re- 
store Swegen's lordships, zb. ; buries 
Beorn, 258 ; joins his father at Bever- 
stone, 261 ; outlawed, 262 ; pursued by 
Ealdred, zb. ; takes refuge at Dublin, zb. ; 
sets sail from Ireland, 266 ; plunders at 
Porlock, zb. ; joins his father, 267 ; re- 
stored to his Earldom, 268 ; succeeds his 
father as Earl of the West-Saxons, 270 ; 
chief ruler under Edward, zb. ; he favours 
the secular clergy, 271 ; founds the Col- 
lege of Waltham, 272 ; his character, 272, 
273 ; favours Germans, 272 ; his travels 
and pilgrimage, 280 ; his prospect of the 
crown, 280, 287 ; his friendship for St. 
Wulfstan, 284 ; marches from Gloucester 
to Rhuddlan and burns Gruffydd's palace, 
285 ; sails from Bristol, and subdues all 
Wales, 285, 286 ; makes the English adopt 
the Welsh tactics, 285 ; receives the 
oaths of the Welsh, 286; traditions of his 
Welsh campaign, zb. ; stories of his oath 
to William, 287, 288 ; shipwrecked on the 
coast of Ponthieu, 288 ; imprisoned by 
Guy, zb. ; set free by William, 289 ; stays 
at William's court, zb.; helps William in 
his Breton campaign, zb.; his oath, zb.; 
different accounts of it, 290 ; its probable 
nature, zb. ; where his real fault lay, 291 ; 
builds a hunting seat at Portskewet, 
293 ; receives demands of the Northum- 
brians at Northampton, 295 ; his policy, 
ib.; meets the Northumbrians at Oxford 
and confirms their demands, 296 ; recom- 
mended by Edward to the Wise Men, 297 ; 
chosen King, 299 ; crowned by Ealdred, 
zb. ; lawfulness of his title, 300 ; the 
Northumbrians refuse to acknowledge 
him, zb. ; he wins them over without blood- 
shed, zb. ; marries Ealdgyth, zb. ; his 
answer at William's embassy, 301 ; his 
defence of the coast, 303 ; he is forced to 
disband his fleet and army, 304 ; marches 
against Harold Hardrada, 306 ; legend 
of his sickness and recovery, 307 ; value 
of the story, 308 ; reviews his fleet at 



Tadcaster, 309 ; passes through York, 
zb.; his victory at Stamfordbridge, 310; 
makes peace with Olaf and Paul, zb.; 
legend of his answer to Tostig, 313 ; 
hearsof William's landing, 318; marches 
to London 319 ; refuses William's offer of 
single combat, 323 ; legend of his visit to 
Waltham, 324 ; sets forth from London, 
325 ; refuses to ravage the land, 326 ; 
pitches on Senlac, zb. ; his generalship, 
327 ; stories of his spies, 328 ; marshals 
his men for the battle, 330, 331 ; his 
speech, 331 ; his personal exploits, 334 ; 
his death, 336 ; legend of his escape, 337 ; 
his body found and buried on the sea- 
shore, 338 ; translated to Waltham, 339 ; 
destruction of his tomb, zb. ; his sons, 
341 ; Dover Castle built by him, 342. 

Harthacnut, son of Cnut and Emma, 23B ; 
succeeds his father in Denmark, 246 ; 
reigns south of the Thames, 247 ; stays 
in Denmark, zb. ; deposed, 249 ; chosen 
King over all England, 250 ; lays on a 
Danegeld, zb. ; digs up the body of 
Harold, zb. ; causes Worcester to be 
burned, 251 ; recalls his brother Edward, 
zb. ; dies at Lambeth, zb. 

Hasting leads the Danes into Gaul, 125; 
his invasion of England, 135. 

Hastings, William encamps at, 317, 318. 

Helen, mother of Constantine, 21. 

Heming, brother of Thurkill, invades Eng- 
land, 216. 

son of Gunhild, banished, 255. 

Hengest settles in Kent, 33. 
Hengestesdun, Ecgberht defeats the Danes 

and Welsh at, 96. 
Henry, King and Emperors of the name 
of, how reckoned, 246. 

King of the East-Franks, an ally of 

Edward the Elder, 146 ; his wars with 
the Danes, 188 ; founds the mark of Sies- 
wick, zb. 

the Second, Emperor, the iEtheling 

Edward marries, his niece, 235. 

the Third, Emperor, marries Gunhild, 

daughter of Cnut, 245 ; his war with 

Baldwin, 256 ; his alliance with England, 

zb.; embassy of Ealdred, 275. 
the Fourth, Emperor, his treatment 

by Hildebrand, 303. 
the First, King of the French, helps 

William of Val-es-Dunes, 264 ; pleads for 

Godwine, 266. 
of Huntingdon, his account of the 

battle of Stamfordbridge, 310. 
Heptarchy, meaning of the word, 40. 
Herakles, Greek proverb of, 304. 
Hereford, Church of, founded by Ofifa, 87 ; 

Welsh do homage to ^thelstan at, 152 ; 

Grufifydd defeats Ralph near, 276 ; church 

and city burned, 277 ; restored by Harold, 

277-279. 



INDEX. 



363 



Herefordshire, traces of the Welsh in, 258 ; 
Frenchmen in, set Edward again3t God- 
wine, 261 ; ravaged by Gruffydd, 265, 
276 ; added to Harold's Earldom, 279. 

Heretoga, meaning of the word, 205. 

Hereward, his exploits, 341. 

Herleva, mother of William the Conqueror, 
264 ; marries Herlwin, 330. 

Herlwm, husband of Herleva, 330. 

Hermann, Archbishop of Koln, receives 
Ealdred, 276. 

Herodotus, stories found in, recurring in 
Teutonic legends, 78. 

Hildebrand, Archdeacon of Rome, wins 
over Pope Alexander to support William, 

303- 
Holland, why so called, 78. 
Holms, Steep and Flat, sufferings of the 

Danes on, 143. 
Holy Rood, legend of, 271, 323-325; 

English war-cry, 330. 
Honorius, Emperor, recalls the Roman 

Legions from Britian, 30. 
Horsa settles in Kent, 33. 
Horses not used in battle by the English, 

276, 327. 
Housecarls, force founded by Cnut, 239; 

nature of the force, 250 ; sent to gather 

Harthacnut's Danegeld, ib.\ their arms, 

285, 331; their fame in Norvv'ay, 305; 

they fight to the last at Senlac, 337. 
Howel the Good, King of the Welsh, his 

laws, 148. 
Hroald, Danish Earl, ravages Wales, 142. 
Hubba. See Ingwar. 
Hugh the Great, Duke of the French, 

marries Eadhild, daughter of Edward 

the Elder, 146; helps to restore Lewis, 

159- 

Capet, chosen King of the French, 

209 ; the crown remains in his family, ib. 

the French Churl, betrays Exeter to 

Swegen, 212. 

Hun, Alderman, killed at iEllandun, 97. 

Hungary'-, language of, 6 ; Kings of. Em- 
perors and Kings of Germany, 85 ; 
Stephen first Christian King of, 235 ; 
Kings of, crowned with Saint Stephen's 
crown, 235 ; embassy, 275. 

Hwiccas, in Gloucestershire, &c., 39, 61, 
82 ; fight between them and the Wii- 
ssetas, 93 ; their land harried by Cnut, 
226. 

Iceland, discovered by the Northmen, 91. 

Iceni revolt under Boadicea, 16. 

Idwal, Prince of South- Wales, subdued by 

Edgar, 173. 
Image worship, disputes about, 84. 
India, language of, 6 ; Alfred's embassy to, 

132. 
Ine, King of the West-Saxons, his wars 

and laws, 69, 70; founds the Church of 



Wells, 69 ; founds Taunton, 70 ; his battle 
with Ceolred of Mercia at Wanborough, 
ib. ; goes to Rome and dies, 71 ; legend 
of, ib. 

Ingulf, Abbot of Crowland, no. 

Ingwar puts Saint Edmund to death, 1 10. 

Interregnum in 1066, 340. 

Ipswich plundered by the Norwegians, 
191. 

Ireland, language of, 4 ; people of, called 
Scots, 48 ; Danes in, 143, 151, 162 ; 
Danes from, ravage England, 258 ; 
Harold and Leofwine take refuge in, 
262 ; return from, 266 ; -^Ifgar raises 
a fleet in, 276, 

Italy, kingdom of, 134 ; united to Ger- 
many, ib. 

Itham.ar of Rochester, first English Bishop, 
61. 

James, first Christian King of the Swedes, 
protects the children of Edmund, 235. 

Jedburgh, Archbishop Wulfstan imprisoned 
at, 165. 

Jehmarc, Under-king in Scotland, does 
homage to Cnut, 245. 

Jersey, Duke Robert's fleet driven back 
from, 245. 

Jerusalem, Alfred's embassy to, 132 ; pil- 
grimage to, of Robert, 263 ; of Swegen, 
268 ; of Ealdred, 281 ; of Harold Hard- 
rada, 305. 

John, the Old-Saxon, encouraged by Al- 
fred, 131. 

the Tenth, Pope, perjury of the 

iStheling Alfred before, 150. 

the Twelfth, Pope, gives the pallium 

to Dunstan, 177 ; ciowns Otto the Great, 
ib. 

the Fifteenth, Pope, makes peace 

between yEthelred and Richard, 210. 

the Nineteenth, Pope, receives Cnut 

at the coronation of the Emperor Conrad, 
242, 243. 

of Salisbury, his account of Harold s 

Welsh campaigns, 286. 

Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, mar- 
ries ^thelwulf, 104 ; marries /Ethelbald, 
106, 107; mistakes about, 116. 

sister of Baldwin, marries Tostig, 

252 ; goes with him to Rome, 281. 

Julian, Emperor, called the Apostate, 21. 

Jumieges, Church of, 259. 

Jupiter, story of, 308. 

Justin, Norwegian chief at the battle of 

Maldon, 191 ; money paid to, ib. 
Jutes, first Teutonic settlers in Britain, 30, 

32 ; their kingdoms in Kent and Wight, 

33 ; of Wight conquered by Ceadwalla, 
67 ; Alfred's mother sprung from, 115. 

Jutland, peninsula of, 210. 

Kenelm, Saint, legend of, 87. 



3^4 



INDEX, 



Kenneth, King of Scots, his dealings 
with Edgar, 174, 175 ; legend of, 176. 

Kent, first Teutonic kingdom in Britain, 
32 ; keeps its Welsh name, 33 ; two 
kingdoms in, 34 ; decline of, 95 ; becomes 
an appanage of Wessex, 95, 97 ; its two 
bishopricks, 139 ; men of, distinguished 
at Senlac, 326, 331 ; legend of their sub- 
mission to William, 344. 

Kings, English, their powers limited by 
law, 41 ; commonly married English- 
women, 45 ; seldom chosen in their 
father's lifetime, 106 ; called Emperors 
of Britain, 139; force of the title, ib.; 
' lords of all Britain, 145 ; right of the 
Wise Men to choose, 299; 

Kingston, kings crowned at, 148. 

Koln, Ealdred stays at, 276 ; trade of, 
with London, zb. 

Lady, title of King's wife in Wessex, 94, 

212 ; Old, or Queen Dowager, 254. 
Lambert, Cnut's real Christian name, 222. 
Landwaster, Harold Hardrada's banner, 

306, 312. 
Laon, royal city of the West-Franks, 134, 

141, 209. 
Latin language, when spoken in Britain, 

19; languages derived from it, 25 ; names 

preserved in Southern Europe, 26. 
Leicester taken by ^thelflsed, 143 ; by 

Edmund, 163, 
Leo the Third, Pope, 83 : suppresses the 

Archbishoprick of Lichfield, id. ; crowns 

Charles the Great, 85. 

the Fourth, Pope, hallows Alfred as 

King, 104. 

the Ninth, Pope ; his dealings with 

Ulf of Dorchester, 259 ; forbids Robert 
to consecrate Spearhafoc, 263. 

Leofgar, Bishop of Hereford, killed by 
Gruffydd, 278. 

Leofric, Earl of the Mercians, 239 ; sup- 
ports Harold and Cnut, 246 ; sent against 
Worcester, 251 ; helps to despoil Emma, 
254 ; refuses help to Swegen, 256; joins 
Edward at Gloucester, 261 ; makes a 
compromise between Edward and God- 
wine, 262 ; lets the Normans pass 
through his Earldom, 267 ; greatness of 
his family, 270, 280 ; dies, 279 ; his 
reverence for St. Wulfstan, 284. 

Abbot of Peterborough, joins Harold 

at Senlac, 326 ; escapes and dies, 337. 

Leofwine, fifth son of Godwine, takes re- 
fuge at Dublin, 262 ; returns with Harold, 
266 ; marches to Senlac, 326 ; his death, 

334- 
Leominster, Monastery of, 257. 
Lewis the Pious, Emperor, division of his 

dominions, 104. 

King of the East- Franks, oath taken 

by his soldiers, 105. 



Lewis, son of Arnulf, last Carlo vingian King 
in Germany, 134. 

King of Provence, marries Eadgifu, 

daughter of Edward the Elder, 146. 

son of Charles the Simple, seeks shel- 
ter in England, 146, 159; restored by 
yEthelstan, 159. 

Saint, compared with Alfred, 113. 

Lichfield, single Archbishop of, 83. 
Lillebonne, William assembles the Norrnan 

barons at, 303. 

Lindesey conquered by the Danes, 117 ; 
meaning of name, 205 ; submits to Swe- 
gen, 221 ; to Cnut, 225 ; plundered by 
Tostig, 304. 

Lindisfarne ravaged by Malcolm, 284. 

Liofa murders Edmund, 163. 

Lithuania, language of, 6, 

Liudhard, Frankish Bishop in Kent, 46. 

Lombards settle in Italy, 83 ; conquered by 
Charles the Great, 84. 

London, first mention of, 16 ; Boadicea 
defeated near, zd. ; said to have been a 
Welsh Archbishoprick, 21 ; keeps its 
Welsh name, 26 ; taken by the Danes, 
102 ; repaired by Alfred, 133 ; occupied 
by Edward the Elder, 140 ; burnt, 1 91 ; 
Swegen and Olaf beaten offlDy its citizens, 
205; Swegen beaten off again, 222; sub- 
mits to Swegen, 223 ; the citizens choose 
Edmund King^ 228 ; besieged by Cnut, 
228 ; assigned to Edmund, 231 ; Eric 
and the Danes winter in, zd. ; seafaring 
men of, support -Harold the son of Cnut, 
246 ; Edward the Confessor chosen King 
at, 253 ; Godwine and his sons restored 
at, 267, 268 ; trade of, with Germany, 
276 ; men of, distinguished at Senlac, 
326, 331 ; joins in the election of Edgar, 

341 ; citizens eager to fight with William, 

342 ; their skirmish with his horsemen, 

345 ; forces of, commanded by Esegar, 

346 ; submit to William, zd. 
Londonderry, why so called, 343. 
Lothar, Emperor, son of Lewis the Pious, 

104, 105. 
. Lotharingia or Lorraine, origin of the 

name, 105 ; men of, favoured by Harold, 

272, 281. 
Lothian, part of Northumberland, 38 ; said 

to be granted by Edgar to Kenneth, 174; 

language of, 175 ; said to be ceded by 

Eadwulf, 22^7. 
Lowen (Louvain), Arnulf defeats the Danes 

at, 135. 
Ludeca, King of the Mercians, killed by 

the East-Angles, 98. 
Lulach succeeds Macbeth, 274. 
Lutgai-esbury, old nameof Montacute, 271, 

323- 
Lyfing, Archbishop, crowns Edmund, 228; 

crowns Cnut, 234. 

Abbot of Tavistock, brings home 



INDEX. 



365 



Cnut's letter from Rome, 243 ; Bishop of 
Worcester, Devonshire, and Cornwall, 
250, 251 ; charged with the murder of 
Alfred, 250 ; promotes the election of 
Edward, 253. 

Macbeth does homage to Cnut, 245 ; re- 
ceives the Norman exiles, 267 ; legends 
of, 273 ; how he became King of Scots, 
ib. ; spends money at Rome, ib. ; de- 
feated by Siward, 274 ; his death, ib. 

Magessetas settled in Herefordshire, 75 ; 
flee at Assandun, 230. 

Magnus, King of the Northmen, threatens 
England, 255 ; his war with Swegen Es- 
trithson, 256 ; his death, ib. 

Maine, men of, at Senlac, 329. 

Mainz, see of, founded, 63. 

Malcolm, King of Scots, receives Cumber- 
land from Edmund, 163. 

Under-king of Cumberland, refuses to 

pay Danegeld, 208 ; King of Scots, 214 ; 
besieges Durham, 215 ; defeated b}'- Uht- 
red, tb. ; defeats the English at Carham, 
244 ; does homage to Cnut, 245. 

Canmore, son of Duncan, proclaimed 

King of Scots by Siward, 274 ; his wars 
with ]Macbeth and Lulach, ib. ; becomes 
Tostig's sworn brother, 284 ; harries 
Northumberland, ib. ; receives Tostig, 

304- 
Maldon, battle of, 191 ; song of, 192 
Malmesbury, Abbey of, ^thelstan buried 

at, 158. 
IMan, ravaged by vEthelred, 208. 
Manchester, taken by Edward the Elder, 

144. 
Margaret, daughter of Edward the 

xEtheling, 275 ; her character, 298. 
Marinus, Pope, his dealings with Alfred, 

132. 
Mark, meanmg of, 188. 
Martin, Saint, William vows a church to, 

329- 

Mary, daughter of Harold Hardrada, be- 
trothed to Eystein Orre, 311. 

Matilda, v»-ife of William the Conqueror, 
her descent, 137 ; her courtesy to Harold, 
289 ; Bayeux tapestry not made by, 320 ; 
Snorro's legend of her death, 323. 

Mercia, origin of the kingdom, 39 : mix- 
ture of races in, ib. ; becomes Christian, 
61 ; growth of, 65 ; its greatness under 
yEthelbald, 75 ; under Offa, 82 ; submits 
to Ecgberht, 98 ; asks help of Ethelwulf 
against the Welsh, 103 ; end of the 
kingdom of, 118 ; divided by the Danes, 
120 ; divided between Alfred and Gu- 
thorm, 125; English portion of, governed 
by an Alderman, 125, 126 ; governed by 
/Ethelflaed, 140 ; united to Wessex by 
Edward the Elder, 143, ■ 144 : Danish 
portion of submits to Edward the Elder, 



144 ; chooses ^thelstan King, 148 : Ed- 
gar made Under-king of, 166 ; revolts 
against Eadwig and chooses Edgar, 170 ; 
ravaged by Swegen, 222 ; holds out for 
Edmund Ironside, 226 ; which shires of 
join Harold's muster, 319. 

Merton, Cynewulf killed at, 89; Ethel- 
red and Alfred, defeated by the Danes, 
112. 

Metropolis, meaning of, 343. 

Michael, Saint, Mount, monastery on, 210 
William and Harold pass by, 289. 

Middle-Saxons, London in their land, 38. 

Middleton, Church of, founded by iEthel- 
stan, 158. 

Milan, Kings of Italy crowned at, 134. 

Mona, both isles so called conquered by 
Edwin, 55. 

Montacute, story of the Cross of, 271. 

Morkere, Thane of the Five Boroughs, 
murdered by Eadric, 225. 

son of iElfgar, chosen Earl by the 

Northumbrians, 294 ; marches to North- 
ampton, 295 ; confirmed in the Earldom 
by Edward, 296 ; drives Tostig away 
from Lindesey, 304 ; defeated by Harold 
Hardrada at Fuiford, 306 ; keeps back 
the Northumbrians from Harold's mus- 
ter, 319 ; joins in the election of Edgar, 
341 ; forsakes him, 342. 

Mul, brother of Ceadwalla, killed by the 
Kentishmen, 67. 

Naval affairs under Alfred, 118, 132, 136 ; 
under Edgar, 172 ; under ^Ethelred, 215. 

Neal, Viscount of St. Saviour's, withstands 
English invasion, 210. 

Neot, Saint, legend of, 121. 

Nicholas, Pope, 281 : refuses pallium to 
Ealdred, 283 ; yields to threats of 
Tostig, ib. 

Nimwegen, palace at, burnt by Baldwin, 
256. 

Nithing, meaning of the word, 258. 

Normandy, foundation of the Duchy, 142 ; 
origin of the name, ib. ; invaded by 
/Ethelred, 208 ; beginning of connexion 
between England and, ib. ; practically 
independent of France, 209. 

Normans, called French in the English 
Chronicles, 254 ; promoted to English 
Bishopricks, 259 ; fly from London, 267 ; 
outlawed by the Wise Men, 268 ; take 
refuge in Scotland and fight for i\Iac- 
beth, 274 ; their use of horses in battle, 
276, 327 ; formed the centre at Senlac, 

329- 

Northampton, submits to Edward the 
Elder, 144 ; burned by the Danes, 216, 
217 ; Northumbrians march to, 295 
meeting at, ib. ; ravages of Northum- 
brians near, ib. 

Northmen, beginning of their inroads, 90 



366 



INDEX. 



their manners and religion, 91 ; kingdoms 
founded by them, ib. ; three periods of 
their inroads, 92 ; connexion of their 
inroads in England and on the Continent, 
135 ; in Gaul become Normans, 142 ; 
adopt the French language, ib. 
Northumberland, kingdom of, founded by- 
Ida, 37 ; extent of, 38 ; becomes Chris- 
tian, 60 ; greatness and decline of, 77 ; 
submits to Ecgberht, 98 ; conquered and 
divided by the Danes, 109, 118; submits 
to Edward the Elder, 145 ; incorporated 
with the kingdom by ^thelstan, 148 ; 
revolts against Edmund, 162 ; recovered 
by him, 163 ; revolts against Eadred 
and is finally recovered, 165 ; divided by 
Edgar into two Earldoms, 174 ; united 
under Uhtred, 215; submits to Cnut, 
227 ; fierceness of the people of, 274, 293 ; 
ravaged by Malcolm, 284 ; Siward and 
Tostig's government in, 293, 294 ; revolts 
against Tostig, 294 ; Morkere chosen 
Earl of, ib. ; acts as a separate kingdom, 
ib. ; refuses to acknowledge Harold, 300 ; 
won over by Harold and Wulfstan, ib. ; 
later use of the name, 306 ; men of, kept 
back by Morkere from Harold's muster, 

319- 

Norway, kingdom of, founded, 188; con- 
quered by Cnut, 239 ; ships from, help 
iElfgar, 280. 

Norwich burned by Swegen, 213. 

Nottingham fortified by Edward the Elder, 
144. 

Oaths, feeling with regard to, 290, 291 ; 
nature of Harold's oath to William, 292. 

Ockley, iEthelwulf defeats the Danes at, 
102. 

Oda, Archbishop of Canterbury, makes 
peace betv/een Edmund and Anlaf, 163 ; 
crowns Eadred, 165 ; divorces Eadwig 
and Eadgifu, 170. 

Odda, appointed Earl of the Western 
shires, 263 ; sent with the fleet against 
Godwine, 266 ; becomes a monk and 
dies, 278. 

Odo, Count of Paris, chosen King of the 
West-Franks, 134, 159. 

Bishop of Bayeux, tapestry made for 

him, 320; his behaviour on the night 
before the battle of Senlac, 328 ; his be- 
haviour in the battle, 330 ; his parents, ib. 

Odoacer, King of the Heruli, reigns in 
Italy, 24. 

Offa, King of the Mercians, legend of, 78 ; 
his wars with the West-Saxons, 82 ; with 
the Welsh, ib. ; his dyke, ib. ; his friend- 
ship vnth Charles the Great, 83 ; charged 
with the murder of ^Ethelberht of East- 
Anglia, 86 ; dies, 87. 

Olaf Tryggvesson, King of the Norwe- 
gians, at the battle of Maldon, 191 ; 



money paid to, 205 ; joins Swegen in his 
invasion of England, ib. ; makes peace 
with ^thelred, 206 ; persecutes his 
heathen subjects in Norway, ib. 
Olaf, Saint, his wars with Cnut, 274 ; per- 
secutes the heathens, ib. ; killed by his 
own people, 275 ; favourite saint among 
the Danes, ib. 

son of Harold Hardrada, accom- 
panies his father to England, 305 ; 
gives hostages to Harold of England, 
310. 

Old Testament, stories from, 236, 237. 
Ordgar, Alderman of Devonshire, legend 

of, 179. 
Orkneys discovered, 17 ; Olaf Trygg- 
vesson visits, 206; Earls of, join Harold 

Hardrada, 305. 
Orosius, his works translated by Alfred, 

i3o> 131- 
Osbeorn, son of Siward, killed in the war 

with Macbeth, 274. 
Osbern, biographer of Dunstan and JElf- 

heah, 217. 
Osburh, mother of Alfred, 114 ; legend of, 

115- 
OsgodClapa, 251; banished, 254, 256; 

dies in his bed, 275. 

Canon of Waltham, sent to Senlac, 

325 ; fails to find Harold's body, 338. 

Oslac, Earl of Deira under Edgar, 174; 
banished, 184. 

maternal grandfather of Alfred, 1x4. 

Oswald, Saint, King of the Northumbrians 

and Bretwalda, finishes the church at 
York, defeats Csedwalla at Heavenfield, 
60 ; defeated and slain by Penda, ib. 

^— Bishop of Worcester and Archbishop 
of York, favours the monks, 177 ; favours 
the election of Edward the Martyr, 184. 

Oswine, King of Deira, slain by Oswiu, 60. 

Oswiu, King of the Northumbrians and 
Bretwalda, defeats and slays Penda, 60 ; 
advance of Christianity under him, ib. 

Oswulf, Earl of the Northumbrians, the 
Earldom remains in his family, 165 ; he 
retains Deira, 174. 

Otford, Edmund's victory at, 230. 

Othhere, sent by Alfred on voyages of dis- 
covery, 131. 

Otto the Great, restores the Empire, 134 ; 
marries Edith, daughter of Edward the 
Elder, 146 ; his friendship for Edgar, 
173- 

the Second, Emperor, overcomes Ha- 
rold Blaatand, 189. 

Owen, King of Cumberland, joins the 
Danes at Brunanburh, 153. 

King of Gwent, submits to iEthel- 

stan, 148. 

Oxford, occupied by Edward the Elder, 
140 ; burned by the Danes, 216; taken 
by Swegen, 222 ; great meeting at, 225 ; 



INDEX. 



Z^l 



Sigeferth and Morkere murdered at, ib. ; 
Edgar's law renewed at, by Cnut, 241 ; 
kingdom divided at, 246; Harold the 
son of Cnut dies at, 249 ; Northum- 
brians march to, 296 ; meeting at, ib. ; 
Northumberland pacified and Cnut's law 
renewed, ib. 

Pallig, husband of Gunhild, his treason, 

211 ; put to death, ib. 
Pallium, badge of Archbishops, 176, 177, 

243, 281. 
Panta, river, battle of Maldon fought on 

its banks, 191-194. 
Paris, importance of the city, 134 ; its 
Counts become Kings of France, 134, 
141, 159, 209; permanence of their dy- 
nasty, 209 ; small extent of their power, 
ib. 
Parret, the Danes defeated near, by Ean- 

wulf and Ealhstan, 102. 
Party-spirit, influence of, 166, 167. 
Paschal the Second, Pope, could not pro- 
nounce the name Cnut, 222. 
Paul, Earl of Orkney, joins Harold Hard- 
rada, 305 ; left with the ships at Riccall, 
ib. ; gives hostages to Harold of Eng- 
land, 310. 
Paullinus, first Bishop of York, converts 
the Northumbrians, 55-59; takes re- 
fuge in Kent, 59. 
Peada, son of Penda, King of the Mer- 
cians, converted to Christianity, 61. 
Pen, meaning of the name, 65. 
Pen Selwood, Edmund's victory at, 229. 
Penda, King of the ^lercians, defeats and 
slays Edwin at Heathfield, 59 ; defeats 
and slays Oswald at Maserfield, 60 ; de- 
feated and slain, ib. ; drives Cenwealh 
out of Wessex, 65. 
Penhow, men of Devon and Somerset 

defeated by Danes at, 211. 
Persia, language of, 6, 

Peterborough, monastery burnt by the 
Danes, no; called the Golden Borough, 
326. 
Pevensey, Roman work at, 18 ; taken by 
the South-Saxons, 34 ; Swegen and Beorn 
at, 257 ; William lands at and builds a 
fort, 317. 
Phoenicians, their language, 10 ; their 
colonies, ii ; their supposed dealings 
with Britain, 12. 
Picardy, mercenaries from, at Senlac, 329. 
Picts, ravage Roman Britain, 29; join with 
the Northumbrians against the Strath- 
clyde Welsh, 77. 
Pippin, King of the Franks, his friendship 

with Eadberht of Northumberland, 77. 
Poitou, men of, at Senlac, 329. 
Ponthieu, Harold wrecked on coast of, 288. 
Popes, origin of their power, 43 ; their power 
in Italy, 83, 84. 



Porlock, Danes driven off from, 143 ; Harold 
and Leofwine plunder at, 266. 

Portskewet, Harold's hunting seat at, de- 
stroyed by Caradoc ap Gruffydd, 293. 

Provence, language of, 25. 

Provinces, Roman, 13. 

Prussia, language of, 6. 

Pucklechurch, Edmund murdered at, 163. 

Raedwald, King of the East-Angles, shel- 
ters Edwin, 51 ; defeats and slays yEthel- 
frith by the Idle, 54. 

Rsegnald (Reginald; takes York, 144; sub- 
mits to Edward the Elder, ib. 

son of Guthfrith, his wars with Ed- 
mund, 163. 

Ragnar Lodbrog, legend of, 108 ; the 
Raven worked by his daughters, 123. 

Ralph, nephe.v of Edward, receives an 
Earldom, 259 ; joins Edward at Glouces- 
ter, 261 ; sent with the fleet against God- 
wine, 266 ; makes the English fight on 
horseback, 276 ; flies before Gruffydd, 
ib.; his death, 279. 

of Norfolk, William's only English 

partisan, 302. 

Raven, the Danish standard, 123. 230. 
Reading, Alfred defeated by the Danes 

at. III ; burnt by Danes, 214. 
Reeve, meaning of the word, 92. 
Regular and Secular clergy, difference 

between, 168, i6g ; disputes between, 

177, 183- 
Repton, taken by the Danes, 117; ancient 

remains at, ib. 
Rhiwallon, brother of Gruffydd, appointed 

Prince of Wales, 287. 
Rhodri Mawr, union of Wales under, 133. 
Rhone, river, old boundary of France, 209. 
Rhuddlan, Gruffydd's palace at, burned, 

285. 
Rhys, brother of Gruffydd of South-Wales, 

beheaded, 268. 
Ricardesrice, Normandy so called, 208. 
Riccall, Harold Hardrada lands at, 305. 
Richard the Fearless, Duke of the Nor- 
mans, his long reign, 209 ; his quarrel 

with iEthelred, 210. 
the Good, Duke of the Normans, 209 ; 

iEthelred's quarrel with, 210 ; peace 

between them, ib.; receives ^thelred, 

223 ; dies, 245. 

the Third, his short reign, 245. 

Robert, Count of Paris and Duke of the 

French, 141 ; King of the French, 146- 
159- 

Count of Mortain, half-brother of 

William, fights at Senlac, 330. 

Duke of the Normans, called the 

Devil and the Magnificent, 245 ; father 
of William the Conqueror, ib. ; attempts 
to restore Edward and Alfred, ib. ; goes 
on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, 263 ; sue- 



368 



INDEX. 



ceeded by his son William the Con- 
queror, 263. 

Robert, Abbot of Jumieges, becomes Bishop 
of London, 259 ; Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, ib. ; sets the King against Godwine, 
ib. ; flies from London, 267 ; deprived, 
268, 281. 

the son of Wymarc, his message to 

William, 318. 

Rochester, Danes driven away from, by 
Alfred, 132 ; lands of the Bishoprick 
ravaged by ^thelred, 191 ; besieged by 
Danes, 207. 

Roderick. See Rhodri. 

Roger of Montgomery, commands the 
Norman right at Senlac, 329, 332 ; he 
breaks dovv^n the barricade, 334. 

Roland, song of, 333. 

Rolf, Rou, or Rollo, helps Guthorm against 
Harold, 132 ; does homage to Charles 
the Simple, 141 ; founds the Duchy of 
Normandy, 142. 

Romans, their character and conquests, 
12 ; first entered Britain, 13 ; their con- 
quest of Britain, 15-17 ; their works, ib.\ 
their occupation of Britain, 18 ; their 
wars with the barbarians, 23 ; their name 
still preserved in the East, 24, 84 ; their 
legions recalled from Britain, 30 ; their 
towns withstand the English, 39 ; choose 
Charles the Great as Emperor, 84. 

Rome, Cnut's pilgrimage to, 242 ; Harold's 
pilgrimage to, 272, 285. 

Romney, men of, beat off the Normans, 
342 ; William's harshness to, ib. 

Rouen, capital and archbishoprick of Nor- 
mandy, 142. 

Rowena, legend of, 33. 

Rudolf, King of Burgundy, 242; grants 
privileges to English travellers, 243. 

Salisbury, Old and New, 116, 117 ; burned 
by Swegen, 213. 

Sandwich, Swegen sails to, 221 ; Cnut 
mutilates his hostages at, 225 ; Cnut 
lands at, 226 ; Edward keeps watch at, 
against Baldwin, 256 ; against Godwine, 
266 ; Tostig driven away from, by 
Harold, 304. 

Saxons, begin to ravage Britain, 29 ; begin 
to settle in Britain, 30 ; all Englishmen 
so called by the Celts, ib. 

of Germany, or Old Saxons, con- 
quered by Charles the Great, 83 ; en- 
couraged in England by Edgar, 173 ; 
their language, 276. 

Scilly Isles, Olaf Tryggvesson visits, 206. 

Scotland, languages of, 4, 5 , northern 
parts not conquered by the Romans, 17 ; 
Swegen takes refuge in, 206 ; Cnut goes 
to, 245. 

Scots, ravage Roman Britain, 29 ; Low- 
land Scots called Saxons by the High- 



landers, 38 ; the Irish called Scots, 48 ; 
defeated by ^Ethelfrith, 52 ; their share 
in the conversion of England, 60 ; submit 
to Edward the Elder, 144 ; to ^Ethelstan, 
148 ; their Kings learn to speak English, 
175 ; submit to Cnut, 244. 

Seax, the Saxon weapon, 149. 

Seisin, meaning of the word, 317. 

Selsey, Bishoprick of, founded, 62. 

Selwood forest, between the Somerssetas 
and Wilsaetas, 105. 

Senlac, battle of, different accounts of, 
319-321; description of the site, 326; 
the night before the battle, 328 ; tactics 
of the English, 331 ; beginning of the 
battle, 332 ; the Normans driven back, 
333 ; ifeigned flight of the Normans, 334 ; 
fight on the hill, 335 ; end of the battle, 

337- 

Sergius, Pope, baptizes Ceadwalla, 60. 

Severn, boundary of England and \\ ales, 
82. 

Severn s, Emperor, his wall, 20 ; dies at 
York, ib. 

Sexburh, Queen of the West-Saxons, 66, 
278. 

Shaftesbury Monastery founded by Al- 
fred, 131 ; Edward the Martyr translated 
to, 185 ; Cnut dies at, 246. 

Sheppey, ravaged by the Danes, 99; Danes 
winter in, 102 ; Cnut retreats to, 230. 

Sherborne, Kings buried at, 106, 107 ; bi- 
shoprick of, divided, 147. 

Sherstone, drawn battle between Cnut and 
Edmund, 229. 

Shield- wall, array of, 112, 327. 

Shipwrecked men, treatment of, 288. 

Shrewsbury (Pen-y-wern) taken by Offa, 
82: 

Sidroc, two Danish Earls so called in 
Alfred's wars, iii ; both killed at Ash- 
down, 112. 

Sigeberht, King of the West- Saxons, de- 
posed, 76. 

Sigeferth, murdered by Eadric, 225. 

Sigeric, Archbishop of Canterbury, advises 
payment to the Danes, 190, 205. 

Sigurd, Earl of Orkney, converts Olaf 
Tryggves-^on, 206. 

Sihtric, Danish King of Northumberland, 
marries a sister of ^thelstan, 145, 148. 

Single combat, practice of, 232, 322. 

Siward, Earl of the Northumbrians, sent 
against Worcester, 251 ; helps to despoil 
Emma, 254 ; joins Edward at Gloucester, 
261 ; invades Scotland and defeats Mac- 
beth, 274 ; story of his death, ib. ; his 
character, 274 ; his church at Galmanho, 
27^, 275. 

nephew of Earl Siward, killed in the 

war with Macbeth, 274. 

Slavery in England, 41. 

Snorro, mistakes in his account of Stam- 



INDEX. 



369 



fordbridge, 315, 316 ; his legend of Wil- 
liam and Matilda, 323. 
Somersetshire gradually becomes English, 
36 ; traces of the Welsh in, 36, 66, 152 ; 
state of, in Alfred's time, 123. 
Somerton taken by^thelbald of Mercia, 75. 

Southampton, Cnut chosen King at, 227 ; 
sXory of his rebuking the sea at, 240. 

South-Saxons, kingdom of, founded by 
^^lle and Cissa, 34 ; converted to Chris- 
tianity, 62 ; submit to Ecgberht, 97 ; 
their zeal for Earl Godwine, 267 ; Harold 
marches through their land, 326. 

Southwark burnt by William, 345. 

Spearhafoc, Bishop elect of London, con- 
secration refused to, 263. 

Staffordshire, victories of Edward the Eld- 
er in, T40. 

Staller, meaning of the title, 302. 

Stamfordbridge, Harold Hardrada en- 
camps at, 306 ; battle of, 309 ; the bridge 
defended by a single Northman, 310 ; vic- 
tory of Harold of England, ib. ; Norwe- 
gian legend of, 311, 315 ; mistakes in the 
story, 316. 

Standard, the English, its device of a fight- 
ing man, 330 ; the royal post by, 331, 
334-336; its site marked by the altar of 
Battle Abbey, 332 ; beaten down, zb. ; 
William pitches his tent by, 338. 

Stephen, Saint, King of the Hungarians, 
protects the children of Edmund, 235. 

Stigand, priest of Assandun, 239 ; Bishop 
of the East-Angles, 255 ; makes peace 
between Edward and Godwine, 267 ; 
made Archbishop of Canterbury, 268 ; 
doubts as to his right, 281; gets the 
pallium from Pope Benedict, zb.; why 
not chosen to crown Harold, 299 ; joins 
in the election of Edgar, 341 ; his share 
in William's coronation, 346. 

Stow-in-Lindesey, ancient church at, 279. 

Strathclyde or Cumberland, kingdom of, 
39 ; subject to Northumberland, 77 ; 
submits to Edward the Elder, 145 ; 
Owen, King of, joins the Scots and 
Welsh against iEthelstan, 153 ; granted 
to Malcolm b}'' Edmund, 163. 

Strength of bod}^, importance of, 289. 

Succession to the Crown, law of, 278, 298. 

Suetonius, defeats Boadicea, 16. 

Sweden, kingdom of, founded, 188 ; partly 
conquered by Cnut, 239. 

Swegen, called Fork-beard, King of the 
Danes, rebels against his father and re- 
stores idolatry, 189 ; joins Olaf Tryggves- 
son in his invasion of England, 205 ; 
legendary cause of his invasion, 206 ; in- 
vades England again, 212 ; takes Exeter, 
a?. ; his campaign in East-Anglia, 213 ; 
his final invasion, 221 ; repulsed from 
London, 222 ; acknowledged as King, 
223 ; story of his death, 223, 224. 



Swegen, son of Cnut, 238 ; succeeds his 
father in Norway, 246. 

son of Ulf and Estrithson, a party in 

his favour at the death of Harthacnut, 
253 ; his friendship for Edward, 255 ; 
keeps Magnus from attacking England, 
256 ; asks help from England, but is re- 
fused, z'b. ; helps the Emperor Henry 
against Baldwin of Flanders, zd. ; refuses 
help to Tostig, 305. 

eldest son of Godwine, his earl- 
dom, 256 ; overcomes Gruffydd of South- 
Wales, 257 ; carries off Eadgifu, zd. ; 
throws up his earldom, td. ; returns, but 
is refused his restoration id. ; murders 
Beorn, z3.; declared nithin^ by the army, 
258 ; restored through Bishop Ealdred, 
ib.; joins his father at Beverstone, 261 ; 
outlawed, 262 ; takes refuge at Bruges, 
ib. ; his pilgrimage to Jerusalem and 
death, 268. 

Swithhun, Saint, Bishop of Winchester, 
103. 

Tadcaster, Harold reviews his fleet at, 309. 

Taillefer, his exploits at Senlac, 332. 

Tamar, river, boundary of England and 
Cornwall, 152. 

Tavistock burnt by the Danes, 207. 

Telham, hill opposite Senlac, 329. 

Teutonic nations, their languages, 5 ; they 
overrun the Empire, 23 ; their settlements 
in Southern Europe, 24 ; they become 
Christians and adopt the Latin language, 
ib.y possible early Teutonic settlement in 
Britain, 29; various Teutonic tribes in 
Britain, 30. 

Thane, meaning of the word, 41 ; fidelity 
of the Thanes of Brihtnoth, 191-203. 

Thanet, ravaged by Edgar, 173. 

Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, 73. 

Theodoric, King of East-Goths, reigns in 
Italy, 24; puts Boethius to death, 130. 

Theodosius, recovers Valentia, 20, 30. 

— — Emperor, 30. 

Thetford burned by Swegen, 213 ; drawn 
battle at, between Swegen and Ulfcytel, 
ib. 

Thietmar, Bishop of Merseburg, his ac- 
count of the death of iElf heah, 218. 

Thingferth, father of Offa, 80, 82. 

Thingmen. See Housecarls. 

Thored, his dream, 306. 

Thrum kills Saint ^If heah, 220. 

Thunder, Old-English god, 40. 

Thurbrand, L^htred fails to kill him, 215 ; 
murders Uhtred, 227. 

Thurcytel, Danish Eari. See Thurkill. 

East-Anglian Thane, his cowardice, 

217. 

Thurfrith, besieges York, 151 ; drowned, 
ib. 

B B 



370 



INDEX. 



Thurkill, Danish chief, submits to Edward 
the Elder, 144. 

Danish Earl, invades England, 216 ; 

burns Northampton, 217 ; tries to save 
Saint ^ifheah, 220 ; takes service under 
vEthelred, 220, 221 ; defends London 
against _ Swegen, ^ 222 ; plunders near 
Greenwich, 223; joins Cnut, 226; fights 
at Assandun, 230 ; Earl of the East- 
Angles, 236 ; helps to found the minster 
at Assandun, 239. 

son of Gunhild, banished, 255. 

Sacrist of Waltham, legend of, 325. 

Thyra, wife of Gorm, makes the Dane- 

werk, 188. 

Tin, Phoenician trade in, 11. 

Tofigthe Proud, marries Gytha, 251 ; founds 
the church of Waltham, 251, 271, 323. 

Tostig, third son of Godwine, takes refuge 
at Bruges, 262 ; made Earl of the 
Northumbrians, 275 ; goes on pilgrimage 
to Rome, 281; robbed on his way back, 
283 ; threatens Pope Nicholas, ib.\ be- 
comes Malcolm's sworn brother, 284 ; 
joins Harold in his Welsh campaign, 

: 285 ; discontent against him in North- 
umberland, 294 ; his alleged crimes, 
ib.\ deposed by Northumbrians, ib.\ 
charges Harold with abbettmg the rebel- 
lion, 295 ; Edward and Harold try to 
restore him, 296 ; he is outlawed and 
banished, ib. ; takes refuge at Bruges, 
ib. ; his disappointment at Harold's elec- 
tion, 300; seeks help from William, 304 ; 
plunders in Wight, Sandwich, and Lin- 
desey, zb. ; driven away by Edwin and 
Moricere, zb.; stays with Malcolm, z'b.; 
seeks help of Swegen, zb.; persuades 
Harold Hardrada to invade England, 
305 ; doubts as to the story, zb. ; he 
joins Harold's expedition, 305 ; killed 
at Stamfordbridge, 310 ; legendary ac- 
count of, 310-315 ; his descendants, 317. 
Toustain, carries the Pope's banner at 

Senlac, 330. 
Tower of London, built by William the 

Conqueror, 260. 
Tremerin, Welsh Bishop, acts for ^thel- 

stan of Hereford, 278. 
Turks, their language, 6; take Constanti- 
nople, 24. 
Tyrant, meaning of the word, 13 ; tyrants 
in Britain, 19 ; Swegen so called, 223. 

Uhtred, son of Waltheof, delivers Durham, 
215 ; his marriages, zb. ; submits to Swe- 
gen, 221 ; joins Edmund against Cnut, 
226 ; submits to Cnut, 227 ; murdered 
by Thurbrand, zb. 

Ulf, brother-in-law of Cnut, put to death 
by him, 238. 

— — Bishop of Dorchester, his lack of 
learning, 259 ; flies from London, 267. 



Ulf, son of Dolfin, murdered by Tostig. 
294. 

Ulfcytel, Earl ot East-Angles, his brave 
resistance to the Danes, 213 ; forsaken by 
his men at Ringmere, 217 ; killed at As- 
sandun, 230. 

Unust, King of the Picts, joins Eadberhtof 
Northumberland against the Welsh, 77. 

Unwan, Archbishop of Bremen, baptizes 
Cnut, 222. 

Utrecht, foundation of the Bishoprick, 73. 

Valery, Saint, William sails from, 317. 
Val-es-Dunes, William defeats the Norman 

rebels at, 264. 
Vandals, their kingdoms in Spain and Italy, 

24. 
Verulam, 16 ; St. Alban martyred at, 21 ; 

forsaken, "21, 81. 
Vortigern said to have invited the English, 

33- 

Wace, Master, his Roman de Ron, 321. 

Wall, meaning of the word, 20 ; walls built 
by the Romans in Britain, zb. 

Wallingford burnt by the Danes, 214 ; Wil- 
liam crosses the Thames at, 345. 

Walter, Bishop ot Heieford, consecrated at 
Rome, 281. 

Waltham, Church of, founded by Tofig, 
251, 271, 323 ; rebuilt by Harold, 271 ; 
growth of the town, zb.; foundation of the 
College, 272 ; consecration of the church, 
281 ; charter granted to, 285 ; legend of 
the Holy Rood of, 323-325 ; Harold's 
body translated to, 339 ; body of Edward 
the First rests there awhile, zb. ; the choir 
destroyed, z3. 

Waltheof, Earl of Beornicia, his remissness, 
215. 

son of Siward, 275 ; his presence at 

Stamfordbridge uncertain, 315 ; men of 
his earldom join Harold, 319. 

Wantage, Alfred born at, 114. 

War-cries, Norman and English, at Senlac, 

330, 333- 

Wareham, taken by Guthorm, 119 ; Ed- 
ward the Martyr buried at, 185. 

Watchet, Danes driven off from, 143 ; 
Danes ravage, 190, 207. 

Watling-street, boundary between English 
and Danes, 125, 163, 222. 

Wedmore, peace of, 123, 125. 

Wells, Church of, founded by Ine, 69 ; 
bishoprick founded by Edward the Elder, 
147 ; changes made by Gisa at, 282. 

Welsh, meaning of the word, 2, 261, 263 ; 
language, where spoken, 19 ; Welsh names 
in England, 26 ; Welsh words in English, 
28 ; treatment of the Welsh in the Eng- 
lish Conquest, zb. ; extent of the Welsh 
territory in the sixth century, 30, 39 ; 
their long resistance, 39; their differ- 



INDEX. 



371 



ences from, the Roman and English 
Churches, 49 ; their power in the North 
broken by Saint Oswald, 60 ; again by 
Eadberht, 77 ; growth of in Central 
Wales under Rhodri Mav/r, 133 ; their 
divisions after his death, and submission 
to Alfred, ib.\ to Edward the Elder, 144 ; 
to ^thelstan, 148 ; paid tribute to 
^thelstan, 152 ; their Princes do homage 
to Edgar, 175 ; their tactics, 285 ; sub- 
mit to Harold, 286; assist revolt of the 
Northumbrians, 295. 

Wends, Slavonic people of North Ger- 
many, 255. 

Wergild^ meaning of, 70, 342. 

Westminster, first King buried at, 249 ; 
rebuilt by Edward, 271 ; consecrated, 
297 ; Edward buried at, 299 ; Harold 
crowned at, ib. ; keeps Easter at, 300 ; 
Edward the First buried at, 339 ; Wil- 
liam crowned at, 346, 347. 

West-Saxons, kingdom of, founded by 
Cerdic and Cynric, 34, 35 ; growth ot 
their kingdom, 34 ; converted to Chris- 
tianity, 61 ; their losses at the hands of 
Penda, 65 ; their advances against the 
Welsh, 65, 66; subject to Mercia, 75; 
set free by the battle of Burford, 76 ; 
supremacy of, under Ecgberht, 100 ; re- 
sults of their supremacy, loi .; effects ol 
the Danish inroads on, loi, 102 ; Danish 
invasion of Wessex, 11 1 ; Wessex over- 
run by the Danes, 120 ; Kings of, be- 
come Lords of all Britain, 145 ; submit 
to Swegen, 223 ; submit to Cnut, 226 ; 
join Edmund, 228, 229 ; double-dealing 
of their Wise Men, 234 ; k-ept in Cnut's 
own hands, 236 ; Godwine, Earl of, 239 ; 
support Harthacnut against Harold, 246 ; 
extent of the earldom under Harold, 
280; join Harold's muster, 319. 

West- Welsh, meaning of the name, 148 ; 
subdued by >!Ethelstan, 152. 

Wherwell, monastery founded, 182, 186 ; 
Edith the daughter of Godwine sent £0, 
263. 

White Horse, said to commemorate Alfred's 
victory, 124. 

Wight, Jutish kingdom of, conquered by 
Ceadwalla, 67; Godwme plunders in, 267. 

Wiglaf, King of the Mercians, becomes 
Ecgberht's man, 98. 

Wihael, Cnut's court at, 227. 

Wilfrith, Bishop, driven from York, con- 
verts the South- Saxons, 61 ; preaches to 
the Frisians, 62 ; rescues part of the 
people in Wight, 68 ; favours the Papal 
authority, 73. 

William, chaplain of Edward, appointed 
Bishop of London, 263; flies from London, 
267 ; restored to his Bishoprick, 268. 

Fitz-Osborne, wins over the Norman 

Barons at Lilleboruae, 303. 



William of Poitiers, his life of William the 
Conqueror, 320. 

Malet, buries Harold, 338. 

Longsword, Duke of the Normans, 

learns Danish at Bayeux, 142 ; helps to 
restore Lewis, 159. 

the Conqueror, compared with Cnut, 

238 ; Edward's friendship for, 254 ; his 
birth, 263 ; his early history and reign in 
Normandy, 264 ; his character, ib. ; his 
visit to Edward, ib^ ; the crown promised 
to him by Edward, ib. ; delivers Harold 
from Guy, 289 ; receives him at his court, 
ib. ; gives him arms, ib. ; his homage to 
Edward, 291 ; entraps Harold with re- 
gard to the oath, 292 ; sends an embassy 
to Harold, 301 ; his claims on the crown, 
301, 302 ; William applies to Pope Alex- 
ander, 302 ; his enterprise approved by 
him, 303 ; he makes ready his fleet, ib. ; 
sails from Saint Valer^'-, 3J7 ; lands at Pe- 
vensej^, ib. ; encamps at Hastings, ib. ; 
his messages to Harold in London, 322 ; 
he offers single combat, ib. ; his treat- 
ment of Harold's spies, 323 ; Snorro's 
legend of him and his wife, ib. ; his last 
messages to Harold, 328 ; his speech to 
his army, ib. ; he marshals his men on 
Telham, ib. ■ story of his coat of mail, ib. ; 
vows an abbey to St. Martin, 329 ; ar- 
rangements of his army, ib. ; his weapon, 
330 ; kills Gyrth with his own hand, 334 ; 
orders the feigned flight, ib. ; pursues trie 
light-armed English, 337 ; pitches his tent 
on the hill, 338 ; refuses burial to Harold, 
ib. ; afterwards relents, 339 ; not King by 
virtue of the battle, 340 ; his conquest of 
England gradual, 341, 348 ; waits at 
Hastings after the battle, 342 ; takes Pe- 
vensey, ib. ; Dover submits to him, ib. ; 
Canterbury submits to him, 343 ; his 
illness, 344 ; marches to Wailingford, 
345 ; beguiles Esegar's messenger, 346 ; 
receives the submission of the English 
at Berkhampstead, 346 ; crowned at 
Westminster, 346, 347 ; in what sense 
called the Conqueror, 348 ; the crown 
ever since held by his descendants, 349 ; 
effects of his reign in England, ib. 

WilUbrord, founds the see of Utrecht, 
73- 

Wilton, Alfred's battle at, 116; chief town 
of the Wilssetas, 117 ; burned by 
Swegen, 213. 

Wimbome, Athelred the First buried at, 
1J3 ; seized by iEthelwald, 138 ; King 
Sigeferth buried at, 172. 

Winchester, Bishoprick of, founded 61 ; 
divided, 69 ; two minsters at, 137 ; sub- 
mits to Swegen, 222 ; Edward the Con- 
fessor crowned at, 253 ; Emma lives at, 
255 ; Edith lives at, 344 ; pays tribute to 
William, 345, 



372 



INDEX. 



Winfrith, or Saint Boniface, Apostle of Ger- 
many, 62. 

legendary name of Ofifa, 80. 

Witan or Wise Men, Assembly of, 41 ; 
their power, 41, 76 ; of Wessex deposes 
Sigeberht, 76. 

Woden, Old-English god, 40, 57, 58 ; sup- 
posed ancestor of the English kings, 40. 

Worcester, Harthacnut's housecarls killed 
at, 251 ; the city burned and the country 
ravaged, ib. ; see of, held with York, 
251, 281. 

Worr, Alderman, poisoned by Eadburh, 93. 

Wreck, right of, 288. 

Wulfgeat, favourite of ^thelred, disgrace 
of, 214. 

Wuhhere, Christian King of the Mer- 
cians, 61. 

Wulfnoth, South-Saxon Child, slandered 
by Brihtric, 215 ; takes to piracy, 216 ; 
whether the father of Earl Godwine, 
247.^ 

sixth son of Godwine, left as a hostage 

with William, 290. 

Wulfstan, Archbishop of York, supports 
Anlaf against Edmund, 163 ; deposed 
and imprisoned, 165 ; made Bishop of 
Dorchester, 166. 

son of Ceola, defends the bridge of 

Maldon, 195. 



Wulfstan, Abbot of Gloucester, 280. 

Saint, Prior of Worcester, his good- 
ness, 284 ; his friendship for Harold, ih. ; 
appointed Bishop of Worcester, conse- 
crated by Ealdred, zb. ; helps Harold to 
win over the Northumbrians, 300. 

Wulfthryth, mother of Saint Edith, 178. 

Wye, river, boundary of England and 
Wales, 152. 

Wyrtgeorn, King of the Wends, husband 
of Gunhild, 255. 

Xerxes, his treatment of the Greek spies, 

York (Eboracum), Severus dies at, 20 ; said 
to have been a Welsh Archbishoprick, 
21 ; capital of Northumberland, 38 ; title 
of its mayor, zb. ; foundation of the church 
of, 59 ; taken by the Danes, 109, 144 ; 
occupied by ^thelstan, 151 ; Edgar at, 
174 ; submits to Cnut, 227 ; origin of 
Saint Mary's Abbey at, 274, 275 ; revolt 
of Northumbrians at, 294 ; massacre of 
Tostig's housecarls at, 295 ; Harold 
acknowledged at, 300 ; gives hostages to 
Harold Hardrada, 306 ; receives Harold 
of England, 309 ; news of William's 
landing brought to, 318. 

Yorkshire, beginning of the name, 306. 



THE END. 



LONDON: R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS. 



February, 1870. 

A Catalogue of Educational Books, 
with a Short Account of their 
Character and Aim^ 

Published by 
MACMILLAN AND CO. 
16, Bedford Street^ Covent Garden, London, |i 

CLASSICAL. 



^SCHYLI EUMENIDES. The Greek Text, with English Notes 
and English Verse, Translation, and an Introduction. By Bernard 
Drake, M.A., late Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. 
8vo. 3J-. 6^. 

The Greek text adopted in this Edition is based upon that of Wellauer, 
which may be said, in general terms, to represe7it that of the best manu- 
scripts. But in correcting the Text, and in the Notes, advantage has been 
taken of the suggestions of Hermann^ Paley, Linwood, and other com- 
mentators. In the Translation, the simple character of the ^schylear, 
dialogues has generally enabled the author to re7ider them without any 
material decision from the construction and idioms of the origi^tal Greek, 
5,000.2.70. A 



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Marshall. — a table of irregular greek verbs, 

classified according to the arrangement of Curtius' Greek Grammar. 
By J. M. Marshall, M. A. , Fellow and late Lecturer of Brasenose 
College, Oxford ; one of the Masters in Clifton College. 8vo, 
cloth. I J. 

The system of this table has been borrowed from the excellent Greek 
Grammar of Dr. Curtius, 

Mayor, John E. B.— FIRST GREEK READER. Edited 
after Karl Halm, with Corrections and large Additions by John 
E. B. Mayor, M.A. Fellow and Classical Lecturer of St. John's 
College, Cambridge. Fcap. 8vo. ds. 

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Mayor, John E. B.— See JUVENAL. 

Mayor, Joseph B.— GREEK FOR BEGINNERS. By the 
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ordinary ten declensions are reduced to three, which correspond to the 
first three in Latin ; and the system of steins is adopted. A general 
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Peile (John, M.A.) — an INTRODUCTION TO GREEK 
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Vaughan, M.A. Third Edition, with Vignette Portraits of Plato 

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MATHEMATICS. 13 

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added for the exercise of the student. 

CAMBRIDGE AND DUBLIN MATHEMATICAL JOURNAL. 

The Complete Work, in Nine Vols. 8vo. cloth, 7/. 4X. 

Only a few copies remaiit on hand. Among Contributors to this 
work will be found Sir W. Thomson, Stokes, Adams, Boole, Sir W. R. 
Hamilton, De Morgan, Cay ley, Sylvester, fellett, and other distinguished 
mathematicians. 



Candler.— HELP TO ARITHMETIC. Designed for the use of 

Schools. By H. Candler, M.A. Mathematical Master of 
Uppingham School. Extra fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. 

This work is intended as a companion to any text book that may be 
in use. 

Cheyne. — AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON THE 
PLANETARY THEORY. With a Collection of Problems. 
By C. H. H. Cheyne, M.A., F.R.A.S. Crown 8vo. cloth, ds. 6d. 

In this volume, an attempt has been made to produce a treatise on the 
Planetary theory, which, being ele7nentary in character, should be so far 
complete, as to contain all that is usually required by students in the 
University of Cambridge. 

THE EARTH'S MOTION OF ROTATION. By C. H. H. 
Cheyne, M. A., F.R.A.S. Crown Svo. 3^.6^. 

The first part of this work consists of an application of the method of the 
variation of elements to the general problem of rotation. In the second 
part the general rotation fo7'mulcs are applied to the particular case of 
the earth. 



1 6 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS, 

Childe.— THE SINGULAR PROPERTIES OF THE ELLIP- 
SOID AND ASSOCIATED SURFACES OF THE Nth 
DEGREE. By the Rev. G. F. Childe, M.A., Author of 
'^Ray Surfaces," "Related Caustics," &c. 8vo. ioj*. dd. 

The object of this volume is to develop peculiarities in the Ellipsoid ; 
and, further, to establish analagous properties in the unlimited congeneric 
series of which this remarkable surface is a constituent. 

Christie.— A COLLECTION OF ELEMENTARY TEST- 
QUESTIONS IN PURE AND MIXED MATHEMATICS ; 
with Answers and Appendices on Synthetic Division, and on the 
Solution of Numerical Equations by Horner's Method. By James 
R. Christie, F.R.S., late First Mathematical Master at the 
Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. Crown 8vo. cloth. %s. 6d. 

The series of Mathematical exercises here offered to the public is collected 
from those which the author has, from time to time, proposed for solution 
by his pupils during a long career at the Royal Military Academy, A 
student who finds that he is able to solve the larger portion of these exercises, 
may consider that he is thoroughly well grotmded in the elementary prin- 
ciples of pure and mixed Mathematics. 

Dalton.— ARITHMETICAL EXAMPLES. Progressively 
arranged, with Exercises and Examination Papers. By the Rev 
T. Dalton, M.A., Assistant Master of Eton College. i8mo 
cloth. 2s. 6d. . , 

Answer's to the Examples are appended. 

Day. — PROPERTIES OF CONIC SECTIONS PROVED 
GEOMETRICALLY. PART L, THE ELLIPSE, with 
Problems. By the Rev. H. G. Day, M.A., Head Master of 
Sedburgh Grammar School. Crown Svo. 3^^. 6^. 

The object of this book is the introduction of a treat77Lent of Conic 
Sections which should be si??iple and statural, and lead by an easy transi- 
tion to the analytical methods, without deparli7ig from the strict geometry 
of Euclid, 



MATHEMATICS. 17 



DodgSOn. — AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON DETER- 
MINANTS, with their Application to Simultaneous Linear 
Equations and Algebraical Geometry. By Charles L. Dodgson, 
1 M.A., Student and Mathematical Lecturer of Christ Church, 
Oxford. Small 4to. cloth. lox. 6d, 

The object of the author is to present the subject as a continuotcs chain of 
argument^ separated from all accessories of explaitation or illustration. 
All such explanation and ilhtstratio7i as see7?ied necessary for a beginner 
are iitti^oduced either iit the forin of foot-notes^ or, where that would have 
occupied too much room, of Appendices, 

Drew. — GEOMETRICAL TREATISE ON CONIC SEC- 
TIONS. By W. H. Drew, M.A., St. John's College, Cambridge. 
Fourth Edition. CrowTi 8vo. cloth. 4J". ^d. 

In this work the subject of Conic Sections has been placed before the student 
in such a form, that, it is hoped, after mastering the elements of Eticlid, he 
may find it an easy and interesting continuation of his geometrical studies^ 
With a view, also, of rendering the work a complete mammal of what is 
required at the Universities, there have either been e^nbodied into the text or 
inserted a^nong the examples, every book-work question, problem, and rider, 
which has been proposed in the Cafnbi-idge examiiiations up to the present 
time. 

SOLUTIONS TO THE PROBLEMS IN DREW'S CONIC 
SECTIONS. Crown 8vo. cloth. d,s. 6d. 

Edgar (J. H.)— note-book on practical solid 

GEOiMETRY. Containing Problems with help for Solutions. By 
J. H. Edgar, M.A. Lecturer on Mechanical Drawing at the 
Royal School of Mines. 4to. 2s. 

In teaching a large class, if the method of lecturing and demonstrating 
from the black board only is pursued, the more intelligent students have 
generally to be kept back, from, the necessity of frequent repetition, for the 
sake of the less promising ; if the plan of setting problems to each pupil is 

B 



1 8 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 



adopted, the teacher finds a difficulty in giving to each sufficient attention. 
A judicious combination of both methods is doubtless the best ; and it is 
hoped that this result may be arrived at iit some degree by the use of this 
book, which is simply a collection of examples, with helps for solution, 
arranged in progressive sections. 

Ferrers. — AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON TRILINEAR 
CO-ORDINATES, the Method of Reciprocal Polars, and the 
Theory of Projectors. By the Rev. N. M. Ferrers, M. A., Fellow 
and Tutor of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. Second 
Edition. Crown 8vo. 6j". 6^. 

The object of the author in writing on this subject has mainly been to 
place it on a basis altogether independent of the ordinary Cartesian system, 
i7tstead of regarding it as only a special form of Abridged Notation. 
A short chapter on Determinants has been introduced. 

Frost. — THE FIRST THREE SECTIONS OF NEWTON'S 
PRINCIPIA. With Notes and Illustrations. Also a collection of 
Problems, principally intended as Examples of Newton's Methods. 
By Percival Frost, M.A., late Fellow of St. John's College, 
Mathematical Lecturer of King's College, Cambridge. Second 
Edition. 8vo. cloth, los. 6d. 

The author's principal intention is to explain diffictdties which may be 
encountered by the student on first reading the Principia, and to illustrate 
the advantages of a careful study of the methods employed by Nezvton, by 
showing the extent to which they may be applied in the solution of problems ; 
he has also endeavoured to give assistance to the sttident who is engaged in 
the study of the higher branches of mathematics, by representing in a 
geometrical form several of the processes employed in the Differential and 
Integral Calculus, and in the analytical investigations oj Dynamics. 

Frost and Wolstenholme.— a treatise on solid 

GEOMETRY. By Percival Frost, M.A., and the Rev. J. 

Wolstenholme, M.A., Fellow and Assistant Tutor of Christ's 
College. 8vo. cloth. iSj. 



MATHEMATICS. 



19 



The authors have endeavoured to present before students as comprehensive 
a view of the subject as possible. Inte^iding to make the subject accessible^ 
at least in the earlier portion^ to all classes of stude7tts^ they have endea- 
voured to explain completely all the processes which are most useful in 
dealing with ordinary theoreins and problems^ thus directing the stude?tt 
to the selection of methods which are best adapted to the exigencies of each 
problefn. In the more difficult portions of the subject^ they have considered 
themselves to be addressing a higher class oj students ; a7id they have there 
tried to lay a good foundation on which to build, if any reader should 
wish to pursue the science beyond, the limits to which the work extends. 



Godfray.— A TREATISE ON ASTRONOMY, for the Use of 

Colleges and Schools. By Hugh Godfray, M.A., Mathematical 
Lecturer at Pembroke College, Cambridge. 8vo. cloth. \2s. 6d. 

This book embraces all those branches of Astronomy which have, from 
time to time, been recomme7tded by the Cambridge Board of Mathematical 
Studies : but by far the larger and easier portion, adapted to the first three 
days of the Examination for Honours, may be read by the m.07'e 
advanced pupils in many of oiir schools. The author'' s aim has been to 
convey clear and distinct ideas of the celestial phenomena. 



AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON THE LUNAR THEORY, 
with a Brief Sketch of the Problem up to the time of Newton. 
By Hugh Godfray, M.A. Second Edition, revised. Crown 
8vo. cloth. 5J-. 6^. 

These pages will, it is hoped, form an introduction to more recondite 
works. Difficulties have been discussed at considerable length. The 
selection of the method followed with regard to analytical solutions, 
which is the same as that of Aijy, Herschel, &^c. was made on account 
of its simplicity ; it is, moreover, the method which has obtained in the 
University of Cambridge, 

B 2 



20 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS, 

Hemming.— AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON THE 
DIFFERENTIAL AND INTEGRAL CALCULUS, for the 

Use of Colleges and Schools. By G. W. Hemming, M.A., 
Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. Second Edition, with 
Corrections and Additions. 8vo. cloth. Qj". 



Jones and Cheyne.— ALGEBRAICAL EXERCISES, Pro- 
gressive]y arranged. By the Rev. C. A. Jones, M.A., and C. H. 
Cheyne, M.A., F.R.A.S., Mathematical Masters of Westminster 
School. New Edition. i8mo. cloth. 2s. 6d. 

This little book is intended to meet a difficulty which is probably J elt more 
or less by all engaged in teaching Algebra to beginners. It is^ that while 
new ideas are being acquired^ old ones are forgotten. In the belief that 
constant practice is the only remedy for this^ the present series of miscel- 
laneous exercises has been prepared. Their peculiarity consists in this, 
that though miscellaneous they are yet progressive, and may be used by 
the pupil almost from the commence?7ient of his studies. They are not 
intended to supersede the systematically arranged exajnples to be found in 
ordinary treatises on Algebra, but rather to supplement them. 

The book being inteitded chiefly for Schools and funior Studeitts, the 
higher parts of Algebra have not been included. 



Kitchener.— A GEOMETRICAL NOTE-BOOK, containing 
Easy Problems in Geometrical Drawing preparatory to the Study 
of Geometry. For the Use of Schools. By F. E. Kitchener, 
M. A., Mathematical Master at Rugby. 4to. 2s. 

It is the object of this book to make sovteway in overcoming the difficulties 
of Geometrical conception, before the mind is called to the attack of 
Geometrical theorems. A few simple methods of construction are given ; 
and space is left on each page, in order that the learner may draw in the 
figures* 



MATHEMATICS. 21 



Morgan. — a COLLECTION OF PROBLEMS AND EXAM- 
PLES IN MATHEMATICS. With Answers. By H. A. 
Morgan, M.A., Sadlerian and Mathematical Lecturer of Jesus 
College, Cambridge. Crown 8vo. cloth, ds. 6d. 

This book contains a mimber of problems^ chiefly elementary^ in the 
Mathematical subjects usually read at Cambridge. They have been 
selected from the papers set du^'ing IcUe years at Jesus College. Very few 
of them are to be met with in other collections^ and by far the larger 
nu7nber are due to some of the most distingtnshed Mathematicians in the 
University. 

Parkinson.— Works by S. Parkinson, B.D., FeUow and Prse- 
lector of St. John's College, Cambridge. 

AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON MECHANICS. For the 

Use of the Junior Classes at the University and the Higher Classes 
in Schools. With a Collection of Examples, Fourth edition, revised. 
Crown 8vo. cloth. Qj". 6^. 

In preparing a fourth edition of this work the author has kept the same 
object in view as he had in the fonner editions — namely, to inchide in it 
such portions of Theoretical Mechanics as can be conveniently investigated 
without the use of the Di^ereiitial Calcuhis, and so render it suitable as 
a manual for the jwiior classes iii the Ujtiversity and the higher classes 
in Schools. With one or two shoii: exceptions, the student is 7iot prestcmed 
to require a knowledge of any branches of Mathematics beyond the elements 
of Algebra, Geometry, and Trigonometry. Several additional propositions 
have been incorporated in^ the work for the purpose of rendering it more 
complete : and the collection of Examples and Problems has been largely 
increased. 

A TREATISE ON OPTICS. Second Edition, revised. Crown 8vo 
cloth. lOJ". 6d. 

A collection of examples ajtd problems has been appended to this work,, 
which are sttfficiently numerozis and varied in character to afford useful 



EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 



exercise for the student. For the greater part of them^ recourse has been 
had to the Examination Papers set in the University and the several 
Colleges during the last twenty years, 

Phear. — elementary hydrostatics. With Numerous 
Examples. By J. B. Phear, M.A., Fellow and late Assistant 
Tutor of Clare College, Cambridge. Fourth Edition. Crown 
8vo. cloth. 5 J. dd. 

This edition has been carefully revised throughout, and many new 
illustrations and examples added, which it is hoped will increase its 
usefulness to students at the Universities and m Schools. In accordance 
with suggestions from many engaged in tuition, answers to all the 
Examples have been given at the end of the book. 

Pratt.— A TREATISE ON ATTRACTIONS, LAPLACE'S 
FUNCTIONS, AND THE FIGURE OF THE EARTH. 
By John H. Pratt, M.A., Archdeacon of Calcutta, Author of 
** The Mathematical Principles of Mechanical Philosophy. " Third 
Edition. Crown 8vo. cloth, ds. 6d. 

The author's chief design in this treatise is to give an answer to the 
question, " Has the Earth acquired its present form from being originally 
in a fluid state ? " This Edition is a complete revision of the former ones. 

Puckle.— AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON CONIC SEC- 
TIONS AND ALGEBRAIC GEOMETRY. With Numerous 
Examples and Hints for their Solution ; especially designed for the 
Use of Beginners. By G. H. Puckle, M.A., Head Master of 
Windermere College. Third Edition, revised and enlarged. Crown 
8vo. cloth, yi". dd. 

This work has been completely rewritten, and a large amount of new 
matter has been added to suit the requirements of the present time. The 
author has written with special reference to those difficulties and mis- 
apprehensions which are found most co??imon to beginners. The treatise is 
complete as far as regai'ds Cartesian Co-ordinates, 



MATHEMATICS, 23 

Rawlinson. — elementary statics, by the Rev. George 
Rawlinson, M. a. Edited by the Rev. Edward Sturges, M. A. , 
of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and late Professor of the Applied 
Sciences, Elphinstone College, Bombay. Crown 8vo. cloth. 4?. 6^. 

Published under the authority of Her Majesty^ s Secretary of State for 
India, for use in the Government Schools and Colleges in India. 

Reynolds.— MODERN METHODS IN ELEMENTARY 
GEOMETRY. By E. M. Reynolds, M.A<, Mathematica 
Master in Chfton College. Crown 8vo. 3J. (id. 

Geometry has received extensive developments in modern times, but in 
England there has been no corresponding improvement in elementary 
teaching. 

Routh.— AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON THE DYNA- 
MICS OF THE SYSTEM OF RIGID BODIES. With 
Nmnerous Examples. By Edward John Routh, M.A., late 
Fellow and Assistant Tutor of St. Peter's College, Cambridge; 
Examiner in the University of London. Second Edition, enlarged. 
Crown 8vo. cloth. \a^s. 

In this edition the author has made several additions to each chapter. 
He has tried, even at the risk 0/ some little repetition, to make each 
chapter, as far as possible, complete in itself, so that all that relates to any 
one part of the subiect may be found in the same place. This arrangement 
will enable every student to select his own order in which to read the 
subject. The Examples which will be found at the end of each chapter 
have been chiefly selected from the Examination Papers which have been 
set in the University and the Colleges in the last few years. 

Smith (Barnard).— Works by BARNARD SMITH, M.A., 
Rector of Glaston, Rutlandshire, late Fellow and Senior Bursar 
of St. Peter's College, Cambridge. 



24 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS, 

Smith (Barnard) — continued, 

ARITHMETIC AND ALGEBRA, in their Principles and Applica- 
tion ; with numerous systematically arranged Examples taken from 
the Cambridge Examination Papers, with especial reference to the 
Ordinary Examination for the B.A. Degree. Tenth Edition, 
Crown 8vo. cloth* \os. 6d. 

This manual is now extensively used in Schools and Colleges^ both i7t 
England and in the Colonies, It has also been found of great service for 
students preparing for the Middle Class and Civil and Military Sei^vice 
Examinatio7is^ from the care that has been taken to ehtcidate the principles 
of all the rules. The present editio7t has been car ef idly revised. " To 
all those whose minds are sufficie^itly developed to co7?iprehend the si7nplest 
7nathe7}iatical reaso7zi7ig, ai^d who have not yet thoroughly 7nastered the 
piH7tciples of Arithfnetic and Algeb7'a, it is calctdated to be of great 
adva7itage, " — ATHENAEUM. 

Of this work, also, 07ie of the highest possible authorities, the late Dean 
Peacock, writes: ^^ Mr. S7?7ith's work is a most useful pitblication. The 
rules are stated with great clear 7iess. The exainples are well selected, and 
worked out with just sufficient detail, without bei7tg e7icu7nbered by too 
i7ii7iute expla7iatio7ts ; a7td there prevails throughout it that just proportio7t 
of theory and practice, which is the crowm7tg excelle7tce of an ele7ne7ttary 
work.^' 



ARITHMETIC FOR SCHOOLS. New Edition. Crown 8vo. 
cloth. 4?. 6d. 

Adapted fi'07n the author's work 07t ^^ Arith7netic a7td Algebi^a,'*^ by the 
077iissio7z of the algebraic p07^tion, and by the i7ttroduction of new exercises. 
The reaso7t of each arith7netical process is fully exhibited. The system of 
Decimal Coi7tage is explai7ted ; and answers to the exercises are appe7ided 
at the e7td. This A7^ith77ietic is characterised as ^^ ad77ii7'ably adapted for 
i7istructio7i, co77tbi7ting just sufficie7tt theory with a large a7id well-selected 
collection of exe7xises for practice.'*'' — JOURNAL OF Education. 



MATHEMATICS, 25 

Smith (Barnard) — continued, 

COMPANION TO ARITHMETIC FOR SCHOOLS. 

\Preparing. 

A KEY TO THE ARITHMETIC FOR SCHOOLS. Seventh 
Edition. Cro^^^l 8vo. cloth. %s. 6^. 



EXERCIS ES IN ARITHMETIC. With Answers. Crown 8vo. limp 
cloth. 2s. 6d. 
Or sold separately, Part I. is. ; Part 11. is. ; Answers, 6d. 

These Exercises have been published in order to give the pupil exa7?tples 
in every rule of Arithmetic. The g7'eater number have been carefi 
coinpiled frojn the latest University and School Examination Papers, 



SCHOOL CLASS-BOOK OF ARITHMETIC. i8mo. cloth. 31. 
Or sold separately, Parts I. and II. lod. each ; Part III. is. 

This manual, published at the request of many schoolmasters, and 
chiefly intended Jor National and Elementary Schools, has been preparea 
071 the same plan as that adopted in the author's School Arithmetic, which 
is in extensive circulation in England and abroad. The Metrical Tables 
have been introduced, fro7n the co7iviction 07i the pa7't of the author, that 
the k7t07.vledge of such tables, and the 7node oj applyi7ig the7n, will be Oj 
great use to the risi7ig ge7teration. 

KEYS TO SCHOOL CLASS-BOOK OF ARITHMETIC. Com- 
plete in one volume, i8mo. cloth, 6j-. (id. ; or Parts I. II. and III, 
2s. 6d. each. 



SHILLING BOOK OF ARITHMETIC FOR NATIONAL AND 
ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS. i8mo. cloth. Or separately, 
Part I. 2d. y Part II. 3^. ; Part III. 7^. Answers, 6d, 



26 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS, 

Smith (Barnard) — continued, 

THE SAME, with Answers complete. i8mo. cloth. IJ". dd. 

This Shilling Book of Arithmetic has been prepared for the use of 
National and other schools at the urgent request of numerous masters of 
schools both at home and abroad. The Explanations of the Rules, and 
the Examples will, it is hoped, be found suited to the most elem^.ntary 
classes, 

KEY TO SHILLING BOOK OF ARITHMETIC. i8mo. cloth. 
4-f. 6^. 

EXAMINATION PAPEKS IN ARITHMETIC. i8mo. cloth. 
I J. 6^. The same, with Answers, iSmo. is, gd. 

The object of these Examination Papers is to test students both in the 
theory and practice of Arithmetic. It is hoped that the method adopted 
will lead students to deduce results from general principles rather than 
to apply stated rules. The author believes that the practice of giving 
examples under particular rules makes the working of Arithmetic quite 
mechanical, and tends to throw all but very clever boys off their balance 
when a general puper on the subject is put before them, 

KEY TO EXAMINATION PAPERS IN ARITHMETIC. 

iSmo. cloth. d^.M, 

Snowball.— THE ELEMENTS OF PLANE AND SPHERI- 
CAL TRIGONOMETRY; with the Construction and Use ot 
Tables of Logarithms. By J. C. Snowball, M.A. Tenth Edition. 
Crown. 8vo. cloth. 7^. dd. 

In preparing the present edition for the press, the text has been 
subjected to a careful revision ; the proofs of some of the more impor- 
tant propositions have been rendered more strict and general ; and a 
considerable addition of more than two hundred examples, taken princi- 



MATHEMATICS. 27 

pally from the questions set of late years in the public examinations of the 
University and of individual Colleges^ has been made to the collection of 
Examples and Problems for practice. 



Tait and Steele.— dynamics of a particle. With 

numerous Examples. By Professor Tait and Mr. Steele. New 
Edition. Crown 8vo. cloth. loj*. 6^. 

Jn this treatise will be found all the ordinary propositions, connected 
with the Dynam.ics of Particles, which can be conveniently deduced without 
the use of D'' Alemberf s Principle. Throughout the book will be found a 
nu7nber of illustrative examples introduced in the text, and for the most 
part completely worked out ; others with occasional solutions or hints to 
assist the student are appended to each chapter. For by far the greater 
portion of these, the Cambridge Senate- House and College Examination 
Papers have been applied to, 

Taylor.— GEOMETRICAL CONICS; including Anharmonic 
Ratio and Projection, with numerous Examples. By C. Taylor, 
B.A., Scholar of St. John's College, Cambridge. Crown 8vo. cloth. 
7j. dd. 

This work contains elementary proofs of the principal properties op Conic 
Sections, together with chapters on Projection and A7ihar7nonic Ratio, 



Tebay.— ELEMENTARY MENSURATION FOR SCHOOLS. 
With numerous Examples. By Septimus Tebay, B.A., Head 
Master of Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School, Rivington. Extra 
fcap. 8vo. y. 6d, 

The object of the present work is to enable boys to acquire a moderate 
knowledge of Mensuration in a reasonable time. All difficult and useless 
matter has been avoided. The examples for the most part are easy, a7id 
the rules are concise. 



28 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS, 

Todhunter. — Works by I. TODHUNTER, M. A., F.R. S., 

of St. John's College, Cambridge. 

THE ELEMENTS OF EUCLID. For the Use of Colleges and 
Schools. New Edition. i8mo. cloth. 3J'. 6d. 

As the elements of Euclid are usually placed ht the hands of youjtg 
students, it is important to exhibit the work in such afoi'm as will assist 
them in overcoming the difficulties which they experience on their first in- 
troduction to processes of co7ttinuous arguinent. No method appears to be 
so useful as that of breaking up the de7nonstrations into their constituent 
parts ; a plan st^'ongly reco7nmended by Professor De Morgan, In the 
present Edition each distinct assertion in the argument begins a new line : 
and at the ends of the lines are placed the necessary references to the 
preceding principles on which the assertions depend. The longer proposi- 
tions are distributed into subordinate parts^ which are distiiiguished by 
breaks at the beginning of the li7ies. Notes, appe7idixy a7id a collection of 
exe7'cises are added. 

MENSURATION FOR BEGINNERS. With Numerous Examples. 
i8rao. cloth. 2s. 6d. 

The subjects i7ichtded i7i the prese7tt wo7'k are those which have tisually 
found a place i7i Ele77ienta7y Treatises 07i Me7tszcratio7t. The mode of 
treat77ie7it has bee7i deter77ii7ied by the fact that the wo7'k is i7ite7ided for the 
use of begi7i7iers. Accordi7igly it is divided i7ito sho7^t i7idepende7tt chapters, 
which are followed by app7'opriate exa77iples. A k7towledge of the ele7nents 
of A7'ith77ietic is all that is assumed; and in con7texion with most of the 
Rides of Mensuratio7i it has been fozmd practicable to give such explana- 
tio7ts a7td ilhtstrations as will supply the place of formal mathematical 
de77io7tstrations, which would have been tmstcitable to the character of the 
work. 

ALGEBRA FOR BEGINNERS. With numerous Examples. New 
Edition. i8mo. cloth. 2s. 6d. 

G7'eat pains have been taken to render this work intelligible to young 
studeittSj by the tise of si7nple laftguage and by copious explanations. Jn 



MATHEMATICS, 29 



Todhunter (I.) — continued, 

determining the subjects to be included and the space to be assigned to each, 
the Author has been guided by the papers give^t at the various examinations 
in elementary Algebra which are now carried on in this country. The 
book may be said to consist of three parts. The first part contai^ts the 
elementary operations in integral and fractional expressions ; the second 
the solution of equations and proble7?is ; the third treats of variotcs subjects 
which are introduced but rarely into examination papers, and are more 
briefly discussed. Provision has at the same tii^te been made for the 
introduction of easy equations and problems at an early stage — for those 
who prefer such a course. 

KEY TO ALGEBRA FOR BEGINNERS. Crown 8vo. cloth. 

TRIGONOMETRY FOR BEGINNERS. With numerous Examples 
New Edition. i8mo. cloth, is. 6d. 

Intended to serve as an introduction to the larger treatise on Plane 
Trigo7iometry, published by the Author. The saine plan has been adopted 
as in the Algebra for Beginners : the subject is discussed in short chapters, 
and a collectiojt of examples is attached to each chapter. The first fourteen 
chapters^ present the geometrical part of Plane Trigonometry ; and co7itain 
all that is necessary for practical purposes. The range of matter included 
is stcch as seems required by the various examinations in elementary Tri- 
go7iometry which are now carried on i7t the cou7tt7y. A 7tswers are appe7ided 
at the end. 

MECHANICS FOR BEGINNERS. With numerous Examples. 
i8mo. cloth. 4J". ^d. 

Intended as a co7npa7iio7t to the two preceding books. The work for7ns 
an elementary treatise on de77i07tst7'ative mecha7iics. It 7?iay be true that 
this part of 7nixed mathematics has been someti77ies made too abstract a7id 
speculative ; but it ca7t ho.rdly be doubted that a k7iowledge of the elements 
at least of the theory of the subiect is extremely valuable even for those 



30 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 



Todhunter (I.) — continued. , 

who are mainly concerned with practical results. The Author has accord- 
ingly endeavoured to provide a suitable introduction to the study of applied 
as well as of theoretical mechanics. The work consists of two parts, 
namely, Statics and Dynamics. It will be found to contain all that is 
usually comprised in ele77ientary treatises on Mechanics, together with some 
additions. 



ALGEBRA. For the Use of Colleges and Schools. Fourth Edition. 
Crown 8vo. cloth, yj-. (id. 

This work contains all the propositions which are usually included in 
elementary treatises on Algebra, and a large number of Examples for 
Exercise. The atithor has sought to render the work easily intelligible to 
students, without ifnpazring the accuracy of the demonstrations, or con- 
tracting the limits of the subject. The Examples, about Sixteen hundred 
and fifty in number, have been selected with a view to illustrate every part 
of the subject. Each chapter is cojnplete i7t itself; and the work will be 
found peculiarly adapted to the wa7its of students who are without the aid 
of a teacher. The Answers to the exainples, with hints for the solution of 
so77ie in which assista7ice 77iay be 7teeded, are given at the e7id of the book. 

AN ELEMENTARY TREATISE ON THE THEORY OF 
EQUATIONS. Second Edition, revised. Crown 8vo. cloth. 
*]s. 6d. 

This treatise contains all the propositions which are usually included 
in elementary treatises on the theory of Equations, together with Examples 
for exercise. These have been selected fro7n the College and U7tiversity 
Exa7ni7iation Papers, and the results have been given when it appeared 
7iecessary. In order to exhibit a co7nprehe7tsive view of the subject, the 
treatise i7tcludes i7ivestigations which are not found i7^ all the preceding 
ele7ne7itary treatises, and also some i7ivestigations which are not to be found 
i7t any of them. For the seco7id edition the work has bee7t revised and 
some additio7ts have been made, the most importa7it being an account of 
the researches of Professor Sylvester respecting Newtor^ s Rule. 



MATHEMATICS. 31 

Todhunter (I.) — co7ttinued, 

PLANE TRIGONOMETRY. For Schools and CoUeges. Fourth 
Edition. Crown 8vo. cloth. 5^, 

Tlie design oj this work has bee^t to render the subject intelligible to 
beginners, and at the same time to aj^ord the student the opportunity of 
obtaining all the information which he will require on this branch of 
Mathematics. Each chapter is followed by a set of Examples : those 
which are entitled Miscellaneous Examples, together with a few in some 
of the other sets, may be advantageously reserved by the student for exercise 
after he has made so?ne progress in the subject. In the Second Edition 
the hints for the solution of the Exa77iples have been considerably increased. 

A TREATISE ON SPHERECAL TRIGONOMETRY. Second 
Edition, enlarged. Crown 8vo. cloth. 4^. dd. 

The present work is constructed on the same plan as the treatise on 
Plane Trigonometry, to which it is i7itended as a sequel. In the account 
of Napier'' s Rules of Circular Parts, an expla^iation has bee7t give^i of a 
m^ethod of proof devised by Napier, which seems to have been overlooked 
by inost modern writers on the subject. Considerable labour has been 
bestowed on the text in order to render it com^prehenstve and accufrate, and 
the Examples {selected chiefly from- College Examinatio7t Pape7's) have 
all bee7t carefully verified. 

PLANE CO-ORDINATE GEOMETRY, as applied to the Straight 
Line and the Conic Sections. With numerous Examples. Fourth 
Edition, revised and enlarged. Crown 8vo. cloth. *]s. 6d. 

The Author has here endeavoured to exhibit the subject i7t a simple 
ma7i7ier for the benefit of begin7iers, and at the sa77te ti77ie to i7ichide i7i 07ie 
volume all that students usually require. In additio7i, therefore, to the 
p7'opositio7ts which have always appeared m such treatises, he has i7it7'o- 
duced the methods of abridged notation, which are of 7nore rece7it origin ; 
these methods, which are of a less ele7nentary character than the rest of the 
work, are placed in separate chapters, and may be 077iitted by the student 
at first. 



32 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS, 

Todhunter (I.) — continued, 

A TREATISE ON THE DIFEERENTIAL CALCULUS. With 
numerous Examples. Fourth Edition. Crown 8vo. cloth. lOx. 6«'. 

The Atithor has eitdeavoured in the present work to exhibit a compre- 
hensive view of the Differential Calculus on the method of limits. In the 
more eleme^itary portions he has entered into considerable detail i7t the 
explanations^ with the hope that a reader who is without the assistance of a 
tutor may be enabled to acquire a competent acquaintance with the subject. 
The method adopted is that of Differential Coefficients. To the different 
chapters are appended examples sufficiently numerous to render another 
book unnecessary ; these examples being mostly selected from College Ex- 
a?ninatio7t Papers. 

A TREATISE ON THE INTEGRAL CALCULUS AND ITS 
APPLICATIONS. With numerous Examples. Third Edition, 
revised and enlarged. Crown 8vo. cloth, los. 6a. 

This is designed as a work at 07tce eleme^ttary and complete^ adapted 
for the use of beginners^ and sttfficient for the waiits of adva^tced students. 
In the selection of the propositions, and in the mode of establishing thefit, 
it has been sought to exhibit the principles clearly, and to illust^'ate 
all their most impo7^tant restdts. The process of summation has been 
repeatedly brought forward, with the view of securing the attention of 
the student to the notions which form the true foundation of the Calculus 
itself as well as of its most valuable applications. Every attempt has been 
made to explain those difficulties which usually perplex beginners, especially 
with refere7ice to the limits ofinteg7^ations. A neiv method has been adopted 
in regard to the transformation of multiple integrals. The last chapter 
deals with the Calculus of Variations. A large collection of exercises, 
selected from College Examination Papers, has been appended to the several 
chapters. 

EXAMPLES OF ANALYTICAL GEOMETRY OF THREE 
DIMENSIONS. Second Edition, revised. Crown 8vo. cloth. 4r. 



MATHEMATICS. 33 

Todhunter (I.) — contimced, 

A TREATISE ON ANALYTICAL STATICS. With numerous 
Examples. Third Edition, revised and enlarged. Crown 8vo. 
cloth. IOJ-. 6^. 

Ill this work on statics {treating of the laws of the equilibrium of bodies) 
will be found all the propositions which usually appear in treatises 071 
Theoretical Statics. To the different chapters exa7?tples a?'e appended, 
which have been principally selected from University Eccamination Papers. 
In the Third Edition many additions have been made, i7i order to illus' 
trate the application of the pri7tciples of the subject to the solution of 
problems. 



Wilson, J. M. — ELEMENTARY GEOMETRY. Angles, 
Parallels, Triangles, and Equivalent Figures, the Circle and Pro- 
portion. By J. M. Wilson, M.A., Fellow of St. John's 
College, Cambridge, and Mathematical Master in Rugby School. 
Second Edition. Extra fcap. 8vo. 3^-. 6^. 

The distinctive features of this work are intended to be the following. 
The classification of Theorems according to their subjects ; the separation 
of Theore7?is and Proble77is ; the use of hypothetical constructions ; the 
adoptio7i of i7idepende7it pi'oofs where they are possible a7td si7nple ; the 
iiitroduction of the terms locus, projection, &c. ; the importance given to 
the notio7i of direction as the property of a straight li7ie ; the inte7'mixi?2g 
^f exercises, classified acco7'di7ig to the 7net hods adopted for their solutio7i ; 
the di7ni7iutio7i of the 7iui7iber of Theore77is ; the compression of proofs, 
especially i7i the later parts of the book ; the tacit, i77 stead of the explicit, 
refe7'ence to axioms ; and the treatment of parallels. 



ELEMENTARY GEOMETRY. PART II. (separately). The 
Circle and Proportion. By J. M. Wilson, M.A. Extra fcap. 
8vo. 2s. 6d, 



34 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS, 

Wilson (W. P.) — A TREATISE ON DYNAMICS. By 
W. P. Wilson, M.A., Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, 
and Professor of Mathematics in Queen's College, Belfast. 8vo. 

Wolstenholme. — a BOOK OF mathematical 

PROBLEMS, on Subjects included in the Cambridge Course. 
By Joseph Wolstenholme, Fellow of Christ's College, some- 
time Fellow of St. John's College, and lately Lecturer in Mathe- 
matics at Christ's College. Crown 8vo. cloth. Zs. 6d. 

Contents: — Geometry {Euclid) — Algebra — Plane Trigono?netry — 
Geometrical Conic Sections — Analytical Conic Sections — Theory of Equa- 
tions — Differential Calculus — Integral Calculus — Solid Geometry — Statics 
—Elementary Dyna?nics — N'avton — Dynamics of a Point — Dyna?}tics of 
a Rigid Body — Hydrostatics — Geo?fietrical Optics — Spherical Tri^oiiometry 
and Plane Astro7iomv, 



SCIENCE. 35 



SCIENCE. 

The importance of Science as an element of sound educa- 
tion is now generally acknowledged ; and accordingly it 
is obtaining a prominent place in the ordinary course of 
school instruction. It is the intention of the Publishers to 
produce a complete series of Scientific Manuals, affording 
full and accurate elementary information, conveyed in clear 
and lucid English. The authors are well known as among 
the foremost men of their several departments ; and their 
names form a ready guarantee for the high character of the 
books. Subjoined is a list of those manuals that have 
already appeared, with a short account of each. Others 
are in active preparation ; and the whole will constitute a 
standard series specially adapted to the requirements of be- 
ginners, whether for private study or for school instruction. 

ASTRONOMY, by the Astronomer Royal. 

POPULAR ASTRONOMY. With Illustrations. By G. B. 
Airy, Astronomer Royal. Sixth and cheaper Edition. i8mo, 
cloth. 4J. 6^. 

This ivork consists of six lectiwes^ which are i7itended " to explain to 
intelhgt7it pcr'sons the principles on which the instmvients of an Obserza- 
tory are consinicted (omitting all details^ so far as they are merely suh- 

C 2 



36 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 

sidiary)^ and the pi^tticiples on which the obsei-vations viade with these 
instruments are treated for deduction of the distances and weights of the 
bodies of the Solar System^ a?td of a few stars, omitting all minutice of 
formiilce, and all troubleso7ne details of calculation^ The speciality of this 
volume is the direct reference of every step to the Observatory^ and the full 
description of the methods and i?istrume?its of observation, 

ASTRONOMY. 

MR. LOCKYER'S ELEMENTARY LESSONS IN ASTRO- 
NOMY. With Coloured Diagram of the Spectra of the Sun, 
Stars, and Nebulae, and numerous Illustrations. By J. Norman 
LOCKYER, F.R.A.S. Fourth Thousand. i8mo. ^s. 6d. 

The author has here aimed to give a connected view of the whole subject, 
and to supply facts, and ideas founded on the facts, to serve as a basis for 
subsequent study and discussion. The chapters treat of the Stars and 
Nebuhe; the Sun; the Solar System ; Apparent Movements of the Heavenly 
Bodies ; the Meastcrement of Time; Light; the Telescope and Spectroscope ; 
Appareitt Places of the Heavenly Bodies ; the Real Distances and Di?nen- 
sions; Universal Gravitation. The most recent astronomical discoveries 
are i7tcorp07^ated, Mr. Lockyer'' s work supplements that of the Astronomer 
Royal vientiofted in the previous aj'ticle, 

PHYSIOLOGY. 

PROFESSOR HUXLEY'S LESSONS IN ELEMENTARY 
PHYSIOLOGY. With numerous Illustrations. By T. H. 
Huxley, F.R.S. Professor of Natural History in the Royal School 
of Mines. Twelfth Thousand. i8mo. cloth. 4^$-. 6d, 

This book describes and explains, in a series of graduated lessons, the 
principles of Human Physiology ; or the Structure and Functions of the 
Hitman Body, The first lesson supplies a general view of the sttbject. 
This is followed by sections on the Vascttlar or Veinotts Syste?n, and the 
Circulation ; the Blood and the Lymph ; Respiration ; Sources of Loss 
and of Gain to the Blood; the Function of Alimentation ; Motion and 



SCIENCE, 37 



Locomotion; Sensations and Sensojy Organs; the Organ of Sight ; the 
Coalescence of Sensations with one another a?id with other States of Con- 
sciousness ; the Nervous System and Innervation; Histology^ or the 
Minute Structure of the Tissues. A Table of Anatoinical and Physio- 
logical Constants is appended. The lessons are fully illustrated by 
numerous engraviitgs. The manual is primarily intended to sei've as a 
text-hook for teachers and learners in boys' and girls' schools. 

QUESTIONS ON HUXLEY'S PHYSIOLOGY FOR SCHOOLS. 
By T. Alcock, M.D. i8mo. is. 6d. 
These Questions were drawn up as aids to the instruction of a class of 
young people in Physiology, 

BOTANY. 

PROFESSOR OLIVER'S LESSONS IN ELEMENTARY 
BOTANY. With nearly Two Hundred Illustrations, By Daniel 
Oliver, F.R.S., F.L.S. Seventh Thousand. i8mo. cloth, 4^-. 6^. 

This book is designed to teach the Elements of Botany on Professor 
Henslow' s plan of selected Types and by the use of Schedules. The eay-lier 
chapters^ embracing the ehfnents of Strttcttiral and Physiological Botany^ 
introdiLce us to the methodical study of the Ordinal Types. The con- 
cludi7ig chapters are entitled^ ^'' How to dry Plants''' and ^^ How to 
describe Plants.'^ A valuable Glossary is appended to the vohcme. In 
the preparation of this zuork free use has been made of the mamiscript 
materials of the late P^^ofessor Heitslow. 

Oliver (Professor).— FIRST BOOK OF INDIAN BOTANY. 
By Daniel Oliver, F.R.S., F.L.S. , Keeper of the Herbarium 
and Library of the Royal Gardens, Kew, and Professor of Botany 
in University College, London. With numerous Illustrations. 
Extra fcap. 8vo. 6x. dd. 

This manual is, in substance, the author^ s ^''Lessons in Elementary 
Botany,'"' adapted for use in India. In preparing it he has had in vieiv 
the zvant, often felt, of some handy resume of Indian Botany, which might 



38 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 

be serviceable not only to residents of India^ but also to any one about to 
proceed thither^ desirous of getting so?ne preli?}iinary idea of the Botaity of 
that country. 

CHEMISTRY. 

PROFESSOR ROSCOE'S LESSONS IN ELEMENTARY 
CHEMISTRY, INORGANIC AND ORGANIC. By Henry 
E. RoscoE, F.R.S., Professor of Chemistry in Owens College, 
Manchester. With numerous Illustrations and Chromo-Litho. of 
the Solar Spectrum, and of the Alkalies and Alkaline Earths, 
New Edition. Twenty-first Thousand. i8mo. cloth. 4J-. 6^. 

// has been the endeavour of the author to ai'range the most important 
facts and principles of Modern Che77iistry in a plaiti but co7tcise and 
scientific fo7'm^ suited to the prese7it 7'equireme7tts of eleme7itary inst7'uctio7t. 
For the purpose of facilitati7tg the attainme7it of exactitude in the knozvledge 
of the subject^ a series of exe7xises and questions upon the lessons have been 
added. The 7netric syste?7i of weights and measures^ a7td the ce7itig7'ade 
therm 0771 etric scale, are used throughout the work. The ne^v Edition, 
hesides new wood-cuts, contai7ts 7na7ty additions a7id i77iprove7ne7its, and 
includes the 77iost i77ipo7'ta7tt of the latest discoveries. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 39 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



Abbott.— A SHAKESPEARIAN GRAMMAR. An attempt to 
illustrate some of the differences between Elizabethan and Modern 
English. By the Rev. E. A. Abbott, M. A., Head Master of the 
City of London School. For the Use of Schools. Second Edition. 
Extra fcap. 8vo. 2s. 6d. 

The object of this work is to furnish students of Shakespeare and Bacon 
with a short systematic accotL7tt of some poiiits of difference betwee7t Eliza- 
bethan syntax and our own. A section on Prosody is added, and Notes 
and Questions, To the new editio?i a cotnplete i7idex to all the lines of 
Shakespeare s plays referred to has been added. 

ATLAS OF EUROPE. GLOBE EDITION. Uniform in size 
with Macmillan's Globe Series, containing 45 Coloured Maps, on 
a uniform scale and projection : with Plans of London and Paris, 
and a copious Index. Strongly bound in half-morocco, with flexible 
back, 9J-. 

This Atlas includes all the countries of Europe i7i a series of 48 Maps, 
drawn on the same scale, with an Alphabetical Index to the situation of 
more tha7t ten thousa7td places ; a7id the relation of the various 7naps and 
countries to each other is defined in a general Key-map, The ide7itity of 
scale in all the 7naps facilitates the compariso7i of extent a7id distance, and 
coitveys a just i7?ipression of the 7Jiag7iitude of difiere7tt countries. The 
size suffices to show the provi7tcial divisioiis, the raihvays and viai7t roads ^ 



40 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 

the principal rivers a?id mountain ranges. " This atlas, '^^ writes the 
British Quarterly, " will be aft invaluable boon for the school, the desk, or 
the traveller'' s port??ia7iteauy 

Bates & Lockyer.— A CLASS-BOOK OF GEOGRAPHY. 

Adapted to the recent Programme of the Royal Geographical 
Society. By II. W. Bates, Assistant Secretary to the Royal 
Geographical Society, and J. N. Lockyer, F.R.A.S. 

\In the Press. 

CAMEOS FROM ENGLISH HISTORY. From Rollo to Edward 

II. By the Author of *' The Heir of Redclyffe." Extra fcap. 

8vo. Second Edition, enlarged, ^s. 

The eftdeavour has not bee^t to chronicle facts, but to put together a series 

of pictures of persons and evefits, so as to arrest the attention, and giree 

some individuality and distinctness to the recollection, by gathering together 

details at the 7?iost memorable moments. The *^ Cameos " are intended as 

a book for yoicng people just beyond the eleme^ttary histories of England, 

and able to enter in so7?ie degree into the real spirit of events, and to be 

struck ivith characters and scenes presented in some relief. " Instead of 

dry details,^'' says the Nonconformist, "w^ have living pictures, faithful, 

vivid, and strikins^. " 

Delamotte.— A BEGINNER'S DRAWING BOOK. By P. 
H. Delamotte, F.S.A. Progressively arranged, with upwards of 
Fifty Plates. Crown 8vo. Stiff covers. 2s. 6d. 
This work is intended to give such instruction to Beginners in Drawing, 
tind to place before the??i copies so easy, that they may not find any obstacle 
ill snaking the first step. Thenceforward the lessons are gradually 
-brogressive. Mechanical improvements too have lent their aid. The whole 
of the Plates have been engraved by a new process, by ?neans of which a 
varping depth of tone — up to the present ti77ie the distinguishi7tg character- 
istic of pencil drawi7tg — has bee7i i77iparted to woodcuts. 

Freeman (Edward A., M.A.). — OLD ENGLISH 
HISTORY FOR CHILDREN. By Edward A. Freeman, 
M.A., late Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford. With Five Coloured 
Maps. Extra fcap. 8vo. , half-bound. 6^-. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 41 



*' Its object is to show that clea7% ac citrate, and scientific views of history, 
er indeed of any subject, may be easily given to children fro7n the very first. 
.... I have, I hope, shown that it is perfectly easy to teach children, 
fro7ii the very first, to distinguish true history alike from legend and from 
wilful invention, and also to uiiderstand the nature of historical authori- 
ties and to weigh one stateme7it against a^iother. . . . / have throughout 
striven to connect the history of England with the general history of 
civilized Europe, and I have especially tried to make the book serve as an 
incejitive to a more accurate stttdv of historical geography. ^^ — Preface. 

HISTORICAL SELECTIONS. Readings from the best Authorities 
on English and European History. Selected and Arranged by 
E. M. Sewell and C. M. Yonge. Crown 8vo. (is. 

When young child7'en have acquired the outli7ies of Histo7y from abridge 
me7its a7td catechisms, and it becomes desirable to give a 7nore enlarged 
view of the subject, i7t order to re7tder it really useful a7id interesting, a 
difficulty often arises as to the choice of books. Two courses are ope7i, either 
to take a general a7id co7iseque7ztly dry history of facts, such as RusseVs 
Moder7t Europe, or to choose some work t7'eating of a particular period or 
subject, such as the works of Macaulay and Froude. The for7ner course 
usually re7tders history uni7iteresti7tg ; the laitei^ is U7isatis factory, because 
it is not sufficiently co77iprehensive. To remedy this difficulty selectio7is, 
continuous and chro7io logical, have, i7i the prese7tt volu7ne, bee7i take7i from 
the larger works of Freeman, Milma7i, Palgrave, and others, which may 
serve as distittct Ia7id77iarks of historical reading. " We know of scarcely 
a7iything,^^ says the Guardian, of this volume, ^^ which is so likely to raise 
to a higher level the average standard of English education.^'' 

Hole.— A GENEALOGICAL STEMMA OF THE KINGS OF 
ENGLAND AND FRANCE. By the Rev. C. Hole. On 
Sheet. \s. 

The differe7it families are pri7ited in distinguishi7ig colours, thus 
facilitating refere7tce. 

A BRIEF BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY. Compiled and 
Arranged by Charles Hole, M.A., Trinity College, Cambridge. 
Second Edition, i8mo. neatly and strongly bound in cloth. 4J. 6^/. 



42 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 



The inquiry is frequently made concerni7tg an eminent 7nany when did 
he live, or for what tvas he celebrated, or tvhat biographies have we abotd 
him ? Such informatio7t is co7icisely supplied i7i this dictio7tary. It contains 
more tha7i 18,000 7ia77ies. Exire77ie care has been bestowed on the verifica- 
ti07t of the dates, a7id thus 7iU77ierous errors citr7'e7it in previous works have 
been co7'rected. Its size adapts it for the desk, port77ianteau, or pocket, 

^^ A7t invaluable addition to our ma7iuals of refere7ice, and from its 
moderate price ca7mot fail to beco77ie as popular as it is «j-^/«/."-- Times. 

Jephson.— SHAKESPEARE'S TEMPEST. With Glossarial 
and Explanatory Notes. By the Rev. J. M. Jephson. i8mo. 
I J-, (id. 

It is i77iporta7it to fi7td so77ie substittite for classical study, and it is 
believed that such a substitute may be found i7t the Plays of Shakespeare. 
Each se7tte7ice of Shakespeare becomes, like a sentence in Thucydides or 
Cicero, a lesson in the origin and derivatio7i of words, and i7i the funda- 
fnental rules of gra77i77iatical construction. On this principle the present 
edition of the ** Te77ipest'^ has bee7t prepared. The text is taken from the 
** Ca77ibridge Shakespeare.''^ 

Oppen.— FRENCH READER. For the Use of Colleges and 
Schools. Containing a graduated Selection from modern Authors 
m Prose and Verse ; and copious Notes, chiefly Etymological. By 
Edward A. Oppen. Fcap. 8vo. cloth. 4?. 6^. 

This is a Selection from the best 77iodern attthors of France. Its dis- 
tinctive feature consists i7t its etymological 7totes, co7inecting French with 
the classical and 7noder7t la7iguages, i7tchiding the Celtic. This subject 
has hitherto been little discussed even by the best-educated teachers. 

A SHILLING BOOK OF GOLDEN DEEDS. A Reading Book 
for Schools and General Readers. By the Author of "The Heir 
of Redclyffe." i8mo. cloth. 

A record of so77ie of the good and great deeds of all ti7ne, abridged fi'om 
the larger work of the same author in the Golde7i Treasury Series. 



MISCELLANEOUS, 43 

Sonnenschein and Meiklejohn. — THE ENGLISH 
METHOD OF TEACHING TO READ. By A. SOxNNENSCHEIN 
and J. M. D. Meiklejohn, M.A. Fcap. 8vo. 

COMPRISING; 

The Nursery Book, containing all the Two-Letter Words in the 
Language. \d. 

The First Course, consisting of Short Vowels with Single 
Consonants, ^d. 

The Second Course, with Combinations and Bridges, con- 
sisting of Short Vowels with Double Consonants. 4</. 

The Third and Fourth Courses, consisting of Long 
Vowels, and all the Double Vowels in the Language. 6^. 

A Series of Books in which an attempt is made to place the process of 
learning to read English on a scientijic basis. This has beeji done by 
separating the perfectly regular parts of the language frof?i the irregular ^ 
and by giving the reg7ilar parts to the learner in the exact order of their 
difficulty. The child begins with the smallest possible element, and adds to 
that elemejit one letter — in only 07te of its functions — at one time. Thus 
the sequence is natural and complete. 

Vaughan, C, M. — a SHILLING BOOK OF WORDS 
FROM THE POETS. By C. M. Vaughan. i8mo. cloth. 

// has been felt of late years that the children of our parochial schools , 
and those classes of our countryiJie^i which they commonly represent, are 
capable of being interested, and therefore benefited also, by so7?iething higher 
in the scale of poetical composition than those brief and someuuhat puerile 
fraginents to which their knowledge was formerly restricted. An attempt 
has here been made to supply the want by fo7'ming a selection at once 
various and unambitious ; healthy in tone, just in se^itiment, elevating in 
thought, and beautiful i7i expression. 

Thring. — Works by Edward Thring, M.A., Head Master of 

Uppingham. 
THE ELEMENTS OF GRAMMAR TAUGHT IN ENGLISH, 

with Questions. Fourth Edition. i8mo. 2s. 



44 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS, 

Thring — (co7itinued). 

This little work is chiefly intended for teachers and learnei's. It took its 
rise from questioniiigs in National Schools, aizd the whole of the first part 
is merely the writing out in order the answers to questions which have been 
used already ivith success. A chapter on Learning Language is especially 
addressed to teachers, 

THE CHILD'S GRAMMAR. Being the Substance of "The 
Elements of Grammar taught in English," adapted for the Use of 
Junior Classes. A New Edition. i8mo. \s, 

SCHOOL SONGS. A Collection of Songs for Schools. With the 
Music arranged for four Voices. Edited by the Rev. E. THRiKy; 
and H. Riccius. Folio. 7^-. 6^. 

There is a tendency in schools to stej'eotype the forms of life. Any genial 
solvent is valuable. Gai7ies do much; but games do not penetrate to 
domestic life, and are miich limited by age. Music supplies the want. 
The collection includes the ^^ Agftus Dei,^^ Tennyson'' s ^^ Light Brigade,^^ 
Afacaulay's ^^ Ivry,^' qt^c. a?non^ other pieces. 

Trench, Archbishop.— HOUSEHOLD BOOK OF ENG- 
LISH POETRY. Selected and Arranged, with Notes, by 
R. C. Trench, D.D., Archbishop of Dublin. Extra fcap. 8vo. 

This volume is called a ^^ Household Book,^'' by this name iinplying that 
it is a book for all — that there is nothing ijt it to prevent it from being 
confidently placed in the hands of every me77iber of the household. Speci- 
mens of all classes of poetry are giveit, inchtding selections from living 
authors. The Editor has aimed to produce a book *' zvhich the emigrant, 
finding room for little not absolutely necessary, might yet find room for it 
in his trunk, and the traveller in his knapsack, and that on some 7tarro^i) 
shelves where the7'e arefeiv books this 77iight be 07ie.^^ 

" The Archbishop has conferred t7i this delightful volume an important 
gift on the whole E7tglish- speaking popidatio7i of the 2uo7dd.^^ — Pall Mall 
Gazette. 



DIVINITY. 



45 



DIVINITY. 



Hardwick.— A HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 
Middle Age. From Gregory the Great to the Excommunication 
of Luther. By Archdeacon Hardwick. Edited by Francis 
Procter, M.A. With Four Maps constructed for this work by 
A. Keith Johnston, Second Edition. Crown 8vo. \os. 6d, 

The ground-plait of this treatise coincides in many points with one 
adopted at the close of the last century in the colossal work of Schrbckh, and 
since that time by other's of his thoughtful countrymen ; but in arrangiftg 
the materials a very different course has frequently been pursued. With 
regard to the opinions of the author^ he is willing to avow distinctly that he 
has construed history with the specific prepossessions of ait Eitglishman and 
a member of the English Church. The reader is constantly referred to 
the authorities, both original and critical, on which the statements are 
founded. 

A HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH DURING THE 
REFORMATION. By Archdeacon Hardwick. Revised by 
Francis Procter, M.A. Second Edition. Crown 8vo. loj-. 6^. 

This volume is intended as a sequel and companion to the ^^ History of 
the Christian Church during the Middle Age." The author^ s earnest 
zvish has been to give the reader a trustworthy version of those stirring 
incidents which mark the Reformation period, without relinquishing his 
former claim to characterise peculiar systems, persons, and events according 
to the shades and colotirs they assume, when contemplated from an English 
point of view, and by a member of the Church of England, 



46 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS, 

Maclear. — Works by the Rev. G. F. MACLEAR, B.D., Head 
Master of King's College School, and Preacher at the Temple 
Church. 

A CLASS-BOOK OF OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY. Fourth 
Edition, with Four Maps. i8mo. cloth. 4j'. 6d. 

This volume forms a Class-book of Old Testament History Jro7n the 
earliest times to those ef Ezra and Nehemiah. In its preparatioit the 
most recent authorities have been cons7dted, and wherever it has appeared 
useful^ Notes have been subjoined illustrative of the Text, and, for the sake 
of more advanced students, references added to larger works. The Index 
has been so arranged as to for7n a concise dictionary of the persons and 
places meittioned in the course of the narrative ; while the maps, which have 
been prepared zvith considerable care at Stanford'' s Geographical Establish- 
ment, will, it is hoped, materially add to the value and usefulitess of the 
Book. 

A CLASS-BOOK OF NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY, including 
the Connexion of the Old and New Testament. With Four Maps. 
Third Edition. i8mo. cloth. 5^. 6d. 

A sequel to the author's Class-book of Old Testament History, continuing 
the narrative from the point at which it there ends, and carrying it on to 
the close of St. PauVs second imprisonment at Rome. In its preparation, 
as in that of the former volume, the most recent and trustworthy authorities 
have been consulted, notes subjoined, and references to larger works added. 
It is thtcs hoped that it may prove at once an tiseful class-book and a 
convenient companion to the study of the Greek Testament, 

A SHILLING BOOK OF OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY, for 
National and Elementary Schools. With Map. i8mo. cloth. 

A SHILLING BOOK OF NEW TESTAMENT HISTORY, for 
National and Elementary Schools. With Map. iSmo. cloth. 

These works have been carefully abridged from the author's larger 

manuals. 



DIVINITY, 47 



Maclear (Rev. G. F.) — continued, 

CLASS-BOOK OF THE CATECHISM OF THE CHURCH OF 
ENGLAND. Second Edition. i8mo. cloth, zs. 6d. 

This may be regarded as a sequel to the Class-books of Old and New 
Testament History, Like them, it is furnished with notes and references 
to larger works ^ a7id it is hoped that it may be fotind, especially in the 
higher forms of our Public Schools, to supply a suitable manual oj 
Instruction in the chief doctrines of the English Church, a7id a useful 
help in the preparatio7t of Ca7tdidates for Confirmation. 

A FIRST CLASS-BOOK OF THE CATECHISM OF THE 
CHURCH OF ENGLAND, with Scripture Proofs, for Junior 
Classes and Schools. i8mo. 6^. 

THE ORDER OF CONFIRMATION. A Sequel to the Class 
Book of the Catechism. For the use of Candidates for Confirma- 
tion. With Prayers and Collects. i8mo. 3^. 

Procter.— A history of the book of common 

PRAYER, with a Rationale of its Offices. By Francis Procter, 

M.A. , Eighth Edition, revised and enlarged. Crown Svo. 

\os, 6d. 

In the course of the last twenty years the whole question of Liturgicai 

knowledge has been reopened with great lea^-ning and acciirate research, 

and it is mainly with the view of epitomizing exte7isive publicatio7is, and 

correcti7tg the errors a7td misco7tceptio7is which had obtai7ied currency, 

thai the present vohnne has bee7t put together, 

Procter and Maclear.— an ELEMENTARY INTRO- 
DUCTION TO THE BOOK OF COxMMON PRAYER. 
Third Edition, re-arranged and supplemented by an Explanation 
of the Morning and Evening Prayer and the Litany. By the Rev. 
F. Procter and the Rev. G. F. Maclear. Fourth Edition. i8mo. 
is. 6d. 



48 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS, 



Procter and Maclear — contintied. 

As in the other Class-books of the series^ notes have also been subjoined, 
and references given to larger works, and it is hoped that the volume will 
he found adapted for tise in the higher forms oj our Public Schools, and a 
suitable manual for those prepari^ig for the Oxford and Cambridge local 
examinations. This new Edition has been considerably altered, and 
several iinportant additions have been made. Besides a re-arrangefnent 
of the work generally-, the Historical Portion has been supplemented by an 
Explanatio7i of the Morning and Evenittg Prayer aiid of the Litany. 

PSALMS OF DAVID CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED. 
BY FOUR FRIENDS. An Amended Version, with Historical 
Introduction and Explanatory Notes. Crown 8vo. los. 6d. 

To restore the Psalter as far as possible to the order in which the Psalms 
were written, — to give the division of each Psahn into strophes, of each 
strophe into the lines which composed it, — to a7nend the errors of translation, 
is the object of the presejtt Edition. Professor Ewald^s works, especially 
that on the Psahns, have bee^i extensively consulted. 

This book has beeji used with satisfaction by masters for private work in 
higher classes in schools. 

Ramsay. — THE CATECHISER'S MANUAL; or, the Church 
Catechism illustrated and explained, for the use of Clergymen, 
Schoolmasters, and Teachers. By the Rev. Arthur Ramsay, 
M.A. Second Edition. i8mo. \s. 6d. 
A clear explanatio7t of the Catechism, by way of question and answer. 

Simpson. — AN EPITOME OF THE HISTORY OF THE 
CHRISTIAN CHURCH. By William Simpson, M.A. 
Fourth Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 3^". 6^. 

A compendious summary of Church History. 



DIVINITY. 49 



Swainson.— A HANDBOOK to BUTLER'S ANALOGY. By 
C. A. Swainson, D.D., Norrisian Professor of Diviniiy a 
Cambridge. Crown 8vo. is. hd. 
This manual is designed to sej've as a handbook or road-book to the 

Student in reading the Analogy, to give the Student a sketch or outline ntap 

of the country on which he is e7iteringj and to point out to hiin matters of 

interest as he passes along. 

WestCOtt. — A GENERAL SURVEY OF THE HISTORY 
OF THE CANON OF THE NEW TESTAMENT DURING 
THE FIRST FOUR CENTURIES. By Brooke Foss West- 
COTT, B.D., Canon of Peterborough. Second Edition, revised. 
Cro\^Ti 8vo. lOJ". 6^. 
The Author has endeavoured to connect the history of the New Testament 
Canon with the growth and consolidation of the Church, and to poiiit out 
the relation existing between the amount of evidence for the authenticity of 
its componejit parts, and the whole mass of Christian literature. Such a 
method of inqiiiry will convey both the truest notion of the connexion of the 
written Wo7'd with the living Body of Christ, and the sttfest conviction of 
its divine authority. 

Of this zvork the Saturday Review writes : " Theological students, and 
not they only, but the general public, owe a deep debt of gratitude to 
Mr. Westcott for bringing this subject fairly before them in this ca^idid and 

comprehensive essay As a theological work it is at once perfectly fair 

and impartial, and imbued with a thoroughly religious spirit; and as a 
manual it exhibits, in a lucid for 7n and in a narrow co7nt)ass, the results 
of extensive research and accurate thought. We cordially recommend it.'' 

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE FOUR GOSPELS. 

By Brooke Foss Westcott, B.D. Third Edition. Crown 8vo. 

loj". 6d. 

This book is intended to be an Introduction to the Study of the Gospels. 

Th;e author has inade it a poiitt carefully to study the researches of the great 

writers, and consciously to neglect none. There is an elaborate discussio7t 

appended '* On the Primitive Doctriiie of Inspiration.'' 

D 



50 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 



Westcott (Canon) — contmued, 

A GENERAL VIEW OF THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH 
BIBLE. By Brooke Foss Westcott, B.D. Crown 8vo. loj-. 6d. 

" The first trustworthy account zve have had of that unique and mar- 
vellous monument of the piety of our ancestors.'' — Daily News. 



THE BIBLE IN THE CHURCH. A Popular Account of the 
Collection and Reception of the Holy Scriptures in the Christian 
Churches. Second Edition. By Brooke Foss Westcott, B.D. 
i8mo. cloth, 4^-. 6^. 

The present book is an attei7ipt to answer a request^ luhich has bee7t made 
from- ti?ne to time^ to place iji a simple form^ for the use of general readers^ 
the substance of the author's ^ ^ History of the Ca7toji of the New Testament." 
An elaborate and compreheiisive Intj^oduction is followed by chapters on 
the Bible of the Apostolic Age ; on the Growth of the New Testament ; the 
Apostolic Fathei's ; the Age of the Apologists : the First Christian Bible ; 
the Bible Proscribed and Restored ; the Age of jferome and Augustine : 
the Bible of the Middle Ages in the West and in the East, and in the 
Sixteenth Ce^itury. Two appendices on the History of the Old Testamettt 
Canon before the Christian Era, and on the Contents of the most ancient 
MSS. of the Christian Bible, complete the volume. 



THE GOSPEL OF THE RESURRECTION. Thoughts on its 
Relation to Reason and History. By Brooke Foss Westcott, 
B.D. New Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 45. 6^. 

This Essay is an endeavour to consider some of the elei7ientary truths 
of Christianity as a fniraculous Revelation f 7^0771 the side of History and 
Reason. If the arguments which are here adduced are valid, they will go 
far to prove that the Resurrection, with all that it includes, is the key to, 
the history of 7nan, and the co7npleme7tt ofreaso7t. 



DIVINITY, 



51 



Wilson.— AN ENGLISH, HEBREW, AND CHALDEE 
LEXICON AND CONCORDANCE, to the more Correct 
Understanding of the English translation of the Old Testament, 
by reference to the Original Hebrew. By William Wilson, 
D.D., Canon of Winchester, late Fellow of Queen's College, 
Oxford. Second Edition, carefully Revised. 4to. cloth. 25^. 

The aim of this work is, that it should be useful to clergymen and all 
persons engaged in the study of the Bible, even luhen they do not possess a 
knowledge of Hebrew ; while able Hebrew scholars have borne testimony to 
the help that they the?nselves have found hi it. 

Wright, W. Aldis (Co-Editor of the" Cambridge Shakespeare"). 
—THE BIBLE WORD-BOOK. A Glossary of Old English 
Bible Words. By J. Eastwood, M. A., of St. John's College, and 
W. Aldis Wright, M.A., Trinity College, Cambridge. i8mo. 

It is the object of this Glossary to explain and illustrate all such words, 
phrases, and constr mictions, in the Authorized Version of the Old and New 
Testaments and the Apocrypha, and in the Book of Common Prayer, as 
are either obsolete or archaic. Full explanations are supplied, and these 
illustrated by nujnerous citations from the elder writers. An index of 
editions quoted is appended. Apart frofu its immediate subject, this work 
serves to illustrate a well-marked period in the history of the English 
language. It is thus of distinct philological 7'alue. 



52 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS. 



BOOKS OF EDUCATION. 



Arnold.— A FRENCH ETON; OR, MIDDLE CLASS 
EDUCATION AND THE STATE. By Matthew Arnold. 

Fcap. 8vo. cloth, is. 6a. 

' * A very interesting dissertation on the syste7?i of secondary instruction 
in France^ and on the advisability oj copying the system i7i England^ — 
Saturday Review. 

SCHOOLS AND UNIVERSITIES ON THE CONTINENT. 

8vo. \os, 6d. 

The Author was in 1865 charged by the Schools Inquiry Commissioner s 
with the task of investigating the system of education for the middle and 
upper classes in France^ Italy ^ Germany^ and Switzerland, In the dis- 
charge of this task he was on the continent nearly seven months^ and 
during that time he visited the four countries named^ and 77iade a careful 
stndy of the matters to which the Commissiofters had directed his attention. 
The present voluine contains the rep07't which he made to them. It is here 
adapted to the use of the general reader. 

ESSAYS ON A LIBERAL EDUCATION. Edited by the Rev. 
F. W. Farrar, M.A., F.R.S., Assistant Master at Harrow, 
late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Hon. Fellow of 
King^s College, London. Second Edition. 8vo. cloth, icxf. 6d. 

Contents : — History op Classical Educatiojt^ by Charles S. Parker y 
M.A. ; Theory of Classical Education^ by Henry Sedgzvick^ M.A. ; 



BOOKS ON EDUCATION. 53 

Liberal Education in Universities^ by John Seeley^ M.A. ; Teaching hy 
means of Grai/t7nar, by E, E. Bowen, M.A. ; Greek and Latin Verse- 
Composition^ by the Rev. F. W. Farrar ; Natural Science ifi Schools^ by 
y. M. Wilson, M.A., F.G.S,; The Teaching of English, by J. W. LLales, 
M,A.; Education of the Reasoning Faculties, by W. Johnson, M.A. ; 
The prese7tt Social Results of Classical Education, by Lord LLoughton. 

The Autho7^s have sought to hasten the expansion a^td improvemejit of 
liberal education by showiftg in what light some of the most interesting 
questions of Educational Refo7'm are viewed by me7t who have had 
opportu7iities for for77iing a judg7nent respecti7ig them, and several of 
whom have bee7i for some time engaged i7i the wo7'k of education at our 
Universities a7id Schools. 



Farrar.— ON SOME defects in public school 

EDUCATION. A Lecture delivered at the Royal Institution. 
With Notes and Appendices. Crown 8vo. \s. 



Jex-Blake.— A VISIT TO SOME AMERICAN SCHOOLS 
AND COLLEGES. By Sophia Jex-Blake. Crown 8vo. cloth. 

** In the following pages I have endeavoured to give a si77iple a7id accurate 
account of what L saw du7'-i7ig a series of visits to some of the Schools and 
Colleges in the U7iited States. . . . I wish si77iply to give other teachers a7t 
opportu7iity of seei7tg through 7ny eyes what they ca7t7iot perhaps see for 
the7nselves, a7id to this e7td Lhave 7^ecorded just such pa7'i:iculars as L should 
myself ca7'e to k7iow'' — Author's Preface. 

^^ Miss Blake gives a livi7tg picture of the Schools a7id Colleges them- 
selves i7i zukich that educ alio 7t is car7'ied 07t.^'' — Pall Mall Gazette. 



Thring. — EDUCATION AND SCHOOL. By the Rev. Edward 
Thring, M.A., Head Master of Uppingham. Second Edition. 
Crown 8vo. cloth. 5^^. ^d. 



54 EDUCATIONAL BOOKS, 

Youmans. — MODERN CULTURE : its True Aims and Require- 
ments. A Series of Addresses and Arguments on the Claims of 
Scientific Education. Edited by Edward L. Youmans, M.D. 
Crown 8vo. %s. 6d. 

Contents : — Professor Ty^idall on the Study of Physics ; Dr. Daubeny 
o7t the Study of Chemistry ; Professor Henfrey on the Study of Botany ; 
Professor Huxley on the Study of Zoology ; Dr. J. Paget on the Study oj 
Physiology; Dr. Whewell on the Educational History of Science ; Dr^ 
Faraday on the Education of the Judg?nent ; Dr. Hodgson on the Study 
of Economic Science ; Mr. Herbert Spencer on Political Education; 
Professor Masson on College Education and Self Education; Dr. Youmans 
on the Scientific Study of Human Nature. An Appendix contains extracts 
from distinginshed authors, and fro7n the Scie7itific Evidence given before 
the Public Schools Co?nj7iission. 



LONDON : 

R. CLAY, SONS, AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS, 

BREAD STREET HILL. 



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